Software engineering is not a very middle class occupation, as you can easily earn amounts more than the average middle class family as a single worker, even in areas that are not tech hubs.
> I don't understand why tech workers in the Bay Area feel guilty about receiving 'high' salaries of $100 - $200k/year. This is not a lot of money... People on Wall street laugh at these amounts.
100-200k a year is a lot of money. That amount easily puts you in the upper quartile of income earners in the US. Comparing yourself as an economic class to the people on Wall Street, who are consistently some of the highest earners in the US, is silly and doesn't make any sense since the vast majority of people do not have income like that.
I'd agree with you if I was referencing some mysterious elite who lucked into their positions or had ivy league connections. I'm talking about my friends from college who had average grades at a top 30 small private school on the East Coast. Several of the ones who went into finance make more than I do, and some a LOT more. I have friends who frequently clear $300k with bonuses in very average wall street jobs. They are in their late 20s... how many enginers can make that much? They are also still early in their careers. Some I imagine will go on to make 7 figure incomes at their peak, whereas we can agree that engineers will top out at 250-300k with bonuses working at the best companies in the world.
Now, I'm not saying I'm struggling to buy food or anything on my healthy engineering salary, I'm just saying that I don't feel guilty AT ALL about how much I make, nor do I feel that I am overpaid in anyway. I do tend to think my contribution to society is at least as much as my finance friends, so perhaps either I am underpaid or they are overpaid.
As someone who went to a small northeastern private school as well... I find it strange that it isn't abundantly clear to you that even our educations were a privilege that the vast majority of the country can't afford.
Feeling guilty or being critical of your own income isn't something that comes from a relative comparison to those who make more than you do. After all, even the average person in finance doesn't make as much money as people working in certain roles or at certain firms. Rather, it is about how that wealth is acquired and how certain jobs, including programmers, occupy a position of class privilege.
> Now, I'm not saying I'm struggling to buy food or anything on my healthy engineering salary, I'm just saying that I don't feel guilty AT ALL about how much I make, nor do I feel that I am overpaid in anyway.
That is totally fine, nobody really is asking that you or any other worker feel guilty. I do think that most people want there to be awareness and perspective about what it means to have the role you have and how that fits into capitalism and the society you live in. That kind of perspective isn't about guilt tripping.
> I do tend to think my contribution to society is at least as much as my finance friends, so perhaps either I am underpaid or they are overpaid.
It is likely that they are overpaid. When you think about it, people that perform low wage labor are just as valuable to society as programmers or those in finance. Those that do not work or cannot work are also just as valuable to society. Of course, work and capitalism don't recognize that inherent value and that is why people like BART workers have to strike and unionize to try and claw out what they desire to live.
I think of finance people as financial engineers. They just deal in the stuff, like I play with data structures, and my friends diodes and resistors and such. I think of how easy it is for me to manage my own software, my friend, his electro-static speakers, and to the finance engineer, his giant piles of money. It's just natural.
The sour grapes response for me is to consider that selling drugs earns more than the finance guys.
> I don't understand why tech workers in the Bay Area feel guilty about receiving 'high' salaries of $100 - $200k/year. This is not a lot of money... People on Wall street laugh at these amounts.
100-200k a year is a lot of money. That amount easily puts you in the upper quartile of income earners in the US. Comparing yourself as an economic class to the people on Wall Street, who are consistently some of the highest earners in the US, is silly and doesn't make any sense since the vast majority of people do not have income like that.