I feel slightly motivated, but mostly crushed by these crazy TC levels.

Although I know I'm doing fairly decent for myself, as someone who is very critical of my own progress or lack of, it feels very disheartening to see people my age making 10x what I am, simply because they are located in SV, doing the same work.

In my area, short of being extremely fortunate to land some amazing fully-remote job, there is not one tech company that pays out anywhere close to 300k+ TC, unless you are in senior leadership or just consulting/doing work on the side.

I understand the reasons for the big disparity, but still... feels bad man.