The occupation of a doctor is a position of power. You always have people working under you -- nurses, students, medical staff. The fundamental interaction between patient and doctor has a power imbalance. The patient comes to the doctor for help and listens to the doctor's authority in the subject.
It's also a more social position than SWE. You talk to people as part of your job. I can get by never talking to anyone as a SWE. It's easier to accumulate a balanced social group as a doctor.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Tech doesnt have nearly the regulation, the slow pace of innovation, and lack of mobility that medicine has. Professors are the worst and are not well paid at all, unless they are able to do consulting on the side.
I personally have owned my own company for around 18 years. I dont care about status, but I want to generate enough $$ to not have to worry about money.
The money I make is about the same as my friends that are at top tier jobs in the bay area. Though my income fluctuates between 300-600k and theirs tends to be more steady.
My wife doesnt work and so many of my friends with two more modest tech incomes make about the same as I do.
> Professors are the worst and are not well paid at all
Not from the professors I know (engineering fields). That information is also public in many cases. They're not making your 300k-600k, but it's extremely stable, a position of power, prestigious because of the requirements, and it gets more prestigious with time.
I suspect with software engineering there is age discrimination against older people. Older doctors are wise and more experienced, older engineers are outdated and retiring soon?
There is a bit of the life saving aspect of it, but people in my experience hold successful business owners, prominent lawyers, hedge fund managers and traders in similar regard. People that make more money useful and know other people who also make more money are or can be useful to you, hence the status. I'm sure some engineers working at Google/Facebook/Apple/etc have similar statuses.
A truly successful business owner is the best IMO -- it's the only one that isn't capped in the amount of money you can earn, but society is jaded by people who have "Entrepreneur" as their occupation on LinkedIn and just occasionally do photography or whatever.
I would say "EM at Google" is better than a GP, but orthopedic surgeon is better than "EM at Google".
Also, do remember that the doctors that do make that kind of money, have student loan payments on $250k-$500k loans
I don't know the most reliable sites for stating pay for doctors, but in my experience these numbers are accurate:
https://careertrend.com/starting-salary-doctors-right-out-re...
http://time.com/4408807/surgeon-salary-how-much-doctors-make...
https://blog.doximity.com/articles/doximity-2018-physician-c...
Also, one of the other cited professions, professors, are paid considerably less than that.
My dental surgeon was recently paid $650 to remove a wisdom tooth, which took him and 1 nurse a total of 5 minutes. Even if you assume 75% of that is overhead, that is still $170 per hour and he immediately went on to see other patients.
I googled for life time earnings by profession and found this document by the US census bureau that makes it seem like they earn similarly (and engineers make a bit more), but they mix nurses and technicians together with doctors and surgeons.
You are still below professors if you measure success by the number of coeds that want to sleep with you regardless of how you look like but you can always find solace in being able to afford to spend $200 on dinner.
From all that experience, as well as my own personal experience having friends from multiple types of backgrounds, I have observed the follow again, my own experience and opinions:
This is what I found to be true: - People who do trade jobs are respected by most (if not all) my quote unquote 'intellectual' or 'upper class' friends (those smart enough to value their labor, myself included) Even my friends or the friends of my parents growing up who where multimillionaires (including one family who had 2 state governors in it). I know this isn't universal, just a general observation. - They have always tended to favor policies (politically speaking) & outlooks that would actually benefit this group of folks the most - There isn't any classicism bias in as so far as I could tell among anyone I know who would be defined as well educated, wealthy, upper class etc.
However, I see this stigma come up a lot, and I have to wonder, is it those looking down or those looking above who perpetuate it? I say that because: - Being around a lot of families that had roots in working trades, I found they often would have resent against those who they considered 'upper class', without much or any evidence as to why this opinion has formed. I always found this fascinating, because its typically their target market (with exceptions of course). - Most trades people I knew typically didn't seem to value education as much (i know its a stereotype, but it did play out in my experience) - Many, many MANY (with the exception of the ever dwindling Unionized tradesmen) favored economic/political policies and had outlooks that would be long term damaging to them (One of the biggest protesters where I grew up of universal health care? Ironically, those who aren't poor enough for govt assistance but aren't well off enough to pay full flight for their medical care (even after insurance). E.g. Those who would benefit the most!) - And often, these are the folks who look down on their own jobs the most.
Now, all of these have caveats, exceptions, edge cases, what have you. I knew those who worked trades that did value education, had lots of logical & grounded philosophical beliefs, etc etc etc and I grew up around people who had carpentry businesses who were multimillionaires before they were 40. So its not hard and fast how this plays out.
I know i'm rambling a bit here, but I feel like this stigma may not be caused by those looking down, but perhaps, those looking up.
A few things I've observed: • My parents aren't intellectual, but they aren't stupid. They read a fair bit. My dad can be pretty dismissive towards academics, but is very pro-learning. • They're pretty conservative - both socially, but more importantly, financially. This seems to be pretty entrenched in their group.
This thread is pretty instructive, in that you've got highly paid techies saying "$60k isn't much money vs what I can make." I think the stereotype in tradespeople not being seen from a position of high status is that there's a very real ceiling on how much you can make (in the same way that there is working for the government).
But there's also got to be something said for the fact that the people making the big jumps in life (at least from a perception point of view) have all gone to college. My parents might have started their careers blue collar - and my Grandparents were all blue collar throughout their careers, but every single grandchild on both sides of the family to date, has gone or is studying at University.
Meanwhile, I know some tradespeople that are 1. smarter than most people I went to college with. 2. make more money than most people I went to college with. 3. harder working and arguably more valuable to society than most people who I went to college with.