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Comment by rdouble | Hacker News Reader

Right, but to make $200K a year as a programmer you have to work at Goldman Sachs or have spent the last 8 years moving up the ranks at VM Ware or be Mark Zuckerburg's college friend. To make $200K a year as a GP you can live anywhere in the USA you want and work part time (which is what my father does).

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To make that $200,000 you also have to pour an ungodly amount of time, effort and money into the education system, etc. Once you factor in all the relevant differences the gap is a lot smaller than it appears at first. There are many programmers who earn that kind of salary and don't fit your description of being in finance or climbing the managerial ladder for years on end.

There are many programmers who earn that kind of salary and don't fit your description of being in finance or climbing the managerial ladder for years on end.

Who are they and where do they work? I am looking for a job.

Find product companies where top-percentile individual contributors can make a huge difference to the company's bottom line and are renumerated accordingly.

Was hoping for specific examples, but thanks anyway.

Sorry to be unhelpful. The specific examples I could have given you wouldn't have been useful in your personal job search and giving them would have meant betraying the confidence of close friends and acquaintances. My post's somewhat abstract answer was a common denominator.

How many of these can there be if giving any hint to the observable characteristics of any of them will compromise an individual's privacy?

You were hoping for a list of companies where psykotic has friends who have shared their confidential salaries with him/her, usually small web businesses with a max of 5 or so programmers, so you can ring up and demand your $200k job?

That's not how the real world works.

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