I don't really know what it's like in America but 150k here is insane.
If you really can't land a job, it's either time for an attitude adjustment or perhaps a third bite at the apple.
I don’t know where you are but 150k is decent at best in most US and Western European big cities. So if someone has a few years of experience under their belt, the expectation isn’t too complacent.
US$150k is not only "decent" in high-income Western European cities (Paris, London, Amsterdam, etc.), it's a huge salary, usually in the top 5% of earners.
This expectation is why software development has become the neo-yuppies of the 2010s-2020s, people with overinflated expectations because they are keeping-up-with-the-Joneses from the internet being loud about their high salaries. Yes, there are people earning a lot in this industry but it's definitely not the norm outside of the inflated US salaries, the USA is the outlier.
I literally don’t understand the rationale behind trying to bring down anyone aiming for a higher wage.
I live in Europe, and 150k isn’t a moonshot salary here. Just because something isn’t the norm doesn’t mean no one should try to achieve it.
Also, OP doesn’t live in Europe and clearly doesn’t care. So 200k is a reasonable ask there. American salaries aren’t outliers; they correspond to the cost of living. Being bitter about your own wage and trying to denigrate someone else isn’t helpful.
> Also, OP doesn’t live in Europe and clearly doesn’t care.
My point was to what I stated about European cities, not sure why you felt the need to state the obvious, refrain from strawman-ing, please.
> I literally don’t understand the rationale behind trying to bring down anyone aiming for a higher wage.
One can aim as much as they want but there's reality: that kind of wage is reserved for less than 5% of the population of already very rich countries, by definition it's not achievable by the majority, and having that as an expectation is bound to bring a lot of people feeling like failures because they can't achieve it. Keeping reality in mind is very good to not end up frustrated because you are earning a salary of 80k€ which is already more than 70-80%+ of what workers earn in the EU...
Aim for what you feel like while keeping in mind that, statistically speaking, you might not achieve it but can still have a very good life with less than that.
I don't really have any interest arguing what a respectable salary on HN is. The recruiter I was working with clearly stated that $180-200k given my resume was reasonable. America isn't europe.
I sold my house last year. I looked up the average price growth over the 8 years I owned it for, did some maths and came up with a value. Estate agents even vaguely corroborated it - they thought it was high but within range.
Then I started having viewings on the house, and no one liked it at the price. People had really weird comments: at this price the garden should be bigger, there aren't enough rooms downstairs, the staircase is too wide. Objectively, whatever that means, it was a lovely house - good location, modern, good condition, nice garden, light and spacious. Nothing wrong with it.
Long story short, in the end I sold it for 15% less than the "fair market price" I came up with, and also 10% below the real estate agents estimate.
It stung, but it's a reminder that the market value is what someone is willing to pay. If no one wants to pay my fair market value then it's not a fair market value, period.
I'm just a rando on the internet, but I think the attitude that you are definitely "worth X" but no one wants to pay you this might be counterproductive. Your empirical evidence says you are apparently worth Y. Markets change, recruiters lie etc.
Start with that as as an evidential baseline and ask yourself what could increase your "value" - be it how you present your experience, how you interview, or what skills you could add or niche you could explore.
I'm gonna be real with you: you need to face the fact that you don't understand the game you're playing.
I know because I was there. I founded a startup that I can make sound impressive. I left when I burnt out, thinking of course what I did was impressive enough to easily land a job. I floundered for 5 years.
Places look at your resume and either see someone who is overqualified (they're right) or someone who hasn't worked on a real project (they're right). If you can't swallow that, you're going to keep beating your head against the wall until you do.
I started refusing any interview that had a live coding exam (I vibed way better with places that did project based exams). I coded my own projects to hone my skills.
Eventually I decided I needed to play the game. What I did was really niche. I took a web dev boot camp and practiced code exams.
Now I have a job where I started at a low salary, but they created a senior position for me in less than a year. It's looking like managing my team will be a thing before year 2. I will get paid less than other people in the industry, but if that ever really bothers me I'll be able to move laterally and make more easily.
This is all to say: suck it the eff up. Your experience is useful, but you're playing a different game. Lower your expectations, get the chip off your shoulder, and maneuver whatever you can find into a win.
