... We are firing up our college recruiting program, enduring all manner of humiliation to try to fill these jobs,” said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin"
No disconnect there.
A startup I worked for long ago sold a contract to HP in Corvalis, Oregon. I spent two weeks getting things set up and training the staff. It took an hour to get there from Eugene, which required a 2-connection flight from Boston. I was surprised there was such a huge campus out there where programmers could work. It would have been great to work out there while it lasted. One of the software engineers I worked with had a pretty typical programmer salary and owned a small ranch, horses, an expensive BMW motorcycle, could support 3 kids and a wife who only worked part time, etc.
Unfortunately, I think this sort of situation is rare and a bit risky to your career... if your job disappears there aren't many alternatives unless you move far away.
"The experience of Ms. Mann and others like her suggests that the technology industry may not be the savior of the American job market and a magic bullet for a moribund economy."
Fred Brooks told use quite a while ago that there's no magic bullet.
They don't want to hire 20year experience engineers for $100K