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The compensation of software tech (especially Silicon Valley) has also gotten much higher over the past number of years in the US compared to disciplines requiring the same level of education/experience both is the US and even Western Europe. I expect this will equalize with outsized tech salaries becoming a thing of the past except for a few individuals with proven track records.

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I mean, the same can be said for consulting salaries, HFT salaries, hedge fund salaries, etc., which similar to software engineering only require a bachelor's and have a similarly grueling interview process.

Why would this equalize? As long as software companies make huge profits and have growth capability which the top ones clearly do, what change would make this happen?

Some software companies are making huge profits today. Many software jobs are at companies making returns comparable to other engineering job profits. There's also a supply side. If the market is flooded with a lot of people in it mostly for the money, salaries will supposedly shrink.

we've seen that most of the people who are only in it for the money don't actually bring much value to the company. a lot of middling software engineers are actually a liability. unlike operational work, engineering needs to have a higher bar than just a beating heart and hands

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