In any case, even if you go by the data in your survey, a machine learning specialist is supposed to make 150k and a mobile developer 144k. Those are still a lot more than 70-80k.
> Yet in the real world, geography, and luck/ability to bootstrap to HCOL areas plays a huge part
Considering the bar to get into a FAANG is just 4-5 leetcode medium-hard questions, I think there is little gatekeeping happening. This isn't investment banking where if you don't go to an Ivy you can't get in. And there are a lot more firms than FAANG paying big salaries.
> I think you're underestimating how wide the gap is between the bimodal peaks
IBM is your quintessential example of a consulting bodyshop. If anything, they would be at the lower bimodal peak, not the higher one.