I know there are caveats and counter-anecdotes but this has been my set of observations over the last 10 years.
Some recruiters are more circumspect, but a lot of them will give a salary range if you ask.
That information can also be found on places like Glassdoor or by talking to acquaintances about the offers they got or getting second-hand accounts of offers that people got. That information can be pretty inaccurate, but people still make decisions based on it.
How can you say that with such confidence?
Maybe the issue is your workplace is using staffing agency, primarily?
We hire dozens of entry level roles per year. That's our bar (of course, coupled with "is authorized to work where the role is").
Many, many more than "top 10 highest-paying." But yes, generally for six figure entry level roles.
But to the point of your question, no. It’s Boston-area typical entry-level SWE, whether self-taught, boot-camp, or college grad. We’re not even top-15 CS program competitive at that rate.
I think discussions around "entry level" jobs are often muddied by the dual meanings of the term.
Companies want to hire experienced people as "entry level" to their company. As in, the position we are hiring you for does not have any kind of seniority.
Fresh Grads want to find an "entry level" position to the entire industry.
This confusion is part of why you see "entry level" job postings asking for years of experience, essentially asking for an intermediate skill level, not a junior skill level.
At the same time they can use their coding skills to make non-tech office jobs more automated.
Entry level jobs are available everywhere - contributing to open source programs. Of course, nobody is going to immediately write you a check for that. But once you build a track record of competent contributions, people will be willing to pay you for more, and may even hire you.
I'm proud that many contributors to the D language have leveraged that into very well paying jobs.
> But once you build a track record of competent contributions
how hard is this? especially for the population who is in need of actual employment.
I am a cs student and has worked professionally but even then making any meaningful contribution to any decent language is beyond what I can afford (time/energy/financial-wise).
More often than not, there is a lack of documentation (yes, I know this can be something I can contribute), very strict requirements for any pull requests, etc.
Dunno, I never kept track. But I also know that a big motivator for D Conference sponsors is recruiting, and a big reason people attend is to get recruited. It's a win all around.
> how hard is this?
It's as hard as you can handle. Of course, competently doing the harder things gets you more leet cred.
> beyond what I can afford (time/energy/financial-wise).
If you're out of work, you have the time, and it costs nothing to contribute.
> very strict requirements for any pull requests
That's right. We're only interested in quality professional work, as any business would. Sub-par work just causes the rest of us problems.
I basically got the job by bothering to write a nice email asking to do it as far as I can tell - I like to think I know what I'm doing (!) but realistically this is a sociopolitical thing not magic.
We have a few more people also working for the foundation who are paid more than me, you could live off that.
The D community is small but very efficient in places, there are a bunch of companies hiring D developers for quite a bit of money, just no where near as many as there are (say) C++ shops. For example, the company funding my position at the foundation manages about 6 Billion dollars raised to the power of D - we're lucky to have them.
We do need some fresh blood, but we can change that now we have people working on it.
Edit: Forgot my birthday was 2 days ago (too much programming rots the brain)