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> I live in SF, and I "only" make $150k a year. All of my friends in the city make at least double what I do thanks to RSUs. Some make three times as much. Three of them are women (!!!!). I've accepted that I'm probably never going to get into a company that pays that well, and that's fine.

This isn't statistical evidence, this is an anecdote about you and your friend circle.

You completely misinterpreted that part of my post. I'm not going to quit tech just because I know that I make significantly less than other people. It doesn't even make sense as a reason for me to quit.

I don't even understand how you could have seen that as an attempted refutation of statistical evidence, as opposed to my actual point, which is that I'm not going to quit tech because I know that I make way less than other people.

> The idea of quitting because I earn significantly less

> than other people with the same years of experience (or

> less) is insane. I can admit that they're better engineers

> than me. That's why they get the big bucks.

Sure, and that’s just fine and sensible. But you might feel differently if they were in fact worse engineers than you. Which is the position that women are in, unless you think that sexism and gender bias doesn’t exist.

In a sexist and gender biased system, the pay gap is not “someone is making more who is better than I am” it is “I am making less than everyone else outside my gender group whose experience / talent matches mine and some who aren’t even as good as I am.”

Can you see why that might be a little less fun and why you might feel frustration towards a field structured that way?

If they're actually better than their coworkers, why can't they just go to a better company where the pay gap no longer matters? Is your life really going to be that much different when you make $340k instead of $370k? I can understand being upset over that extra $30k and fighting for it, but quitting your career completely?

Do you understand that the only thing I'm calling out here is how drastic and irrational a complete exit is? That's my only problem with this. I wouldn't believe someone who cited a wage gap in tech as their primary reason for leaving, because it doesn't make sense!

It's one of the most comfortable and flexible middle-class careers you can have in the modern economy, and it's arguably the most lucrative when you account for barrier of entry.

It feels like you're framing my argument as "there is no sexism in tech" or "women shouldn't complain", when that isn't my stance at all.

I don’t think anyone exits the field entirely because of just the wage gap, it’s everything that’s around it as well. The total impact can be a lot more than you’ve likely ever had the experience to know and turns a field that can honestly be fun and challenging in a good way into a lonely place devoid of as many interesting problems because you constantly have to fight the mundane ones. And then your pay is worse than others (sometimes by a lot more than 30k/yr) to deal with it?

I can see why some people just decide to be done. I came close a few years ago.

>I've accepted that I'm probably never going to get into a company that pays that well, and that's fine.

Why? Have you tried to get into such companies? What part of the interviews are you failing at? If you've given up before you've even tried, then sure, you'll never get in.

You don't have to be a ridiculously good engineer get in.

I guess I was being overly dramatic there. I did manage to make it to onsites for the first time this year after failing phone screens before, so we'll see. I just haven't spent enough time practicing. I find it hard to do so outside of work, and everyone can see my screen in the office.