"$200k base salary in the Bay Area is Engineering Manager level - VP at a well-funded startup, or Sr Director at a larger company. Not sure what your friend is doing."

First I think it is 180k gross salary, not really "base". Second, as I said, all I know is that he is working on some kind of CRUD Rails Insurance App that makes its company millions of dollars. He is just a competent Rails dev. No genius of any kind or any extraordinary skills like, say Linus Torvalds. Maybe he is being paid a premium because he is the only capable dev in the company. Maybe he just got lucky. He has a dozen years or so of experience. I really don't know any details hence the "anecdote" prefix.

If it helps, I knew middle managers at Intuit were drawing well above 200k US$ at nowhere near "Senior Director" level. My immediate boss in India was drawing around that much. And his boss about 300k. Another "dotted line"/ matrix org( heh!) immediate superior was getting >250k as well. This guy was a "Chief Architect" and not manager at all. (well in Intuit all these positions are very political and not really about tech at all, still) And he had a 3-4 layers above him before he reached the boardroom players at Intuit. I don't consider GlassDoor to be authoritative but here is a report for a position (plain jane "architect") that would be one level below my "Chief Architect" boss.

http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Intuit-Software-Architect-Mo...

Seems to bear out my thesis that these kind of salaries aren't all that rare. To repeat, I am not saying GlassDoor estimates are accurate, just that in this case, it bears out my personal experience.

Another anecdote: My title at Intuit (India) had an additional (and empty) "Senior Program Manager" tacked onto "Architect" and I was getting > 100k in India. (In Intuit, when I was there, Indian salaries were roughly half US salaries for the same position.) They still find it very hard to hire senior technical people. Go figure.

My personal hypothesis on such things is that salaries follow perceived (vs actual) value add. I had nothing to do at Intuit except attend endless meetings about meetings and write the occasional email. I quit in 6 months.(It helped that I really didn't need the money and I could make an equivalent amount but actually working for it (which I am doing now touch wood)). My former division at Intuit has delivered nothing (except PowerPoint) in the last couple of years but everyone who is still there keeps drawing their salaries. Some even got raises.

So, yes. Intuit is a cash flush/high paying company, but I still wouldn't really blink at someone getting 200 k in San Fransisco, without being anything like a VP, but hey I don't live there. What do I know? I am glad to concede to people "on the ground".

PS : I also have friends, who are really good developers working on very cutting edge projects in Google (Mountain View) who don't make anything near 250 k. They are very fulfilled by their work and don't seem to care. So it seems to be all over the place. But there certainly are very normal devs getting >200k in SV. (and of course many more at WallStreet companies but that is probably a separate discussion).