So I've had this idea for a little while, still extremely rough and potentially controversial, but I've talked to a number of people who agree. Its based both on my own experience as well as chatting with other developers.

It seems to me, that there are "classes" of developers. This is not necessarily tied to market or ability, but those can definitely be be big contributors to which class you fall in. Prior to me entering the field professionally, blog posts, articles, etc. seemed to promise an easy six figure salary to anyone who could remotely code, smooth sailing after you get that first job and other highly appealing things. I have a good feeling a number of people on here would likely agree with this reality. For others I've spoken to, this was never the case. I never saw any of that personally. Reasons being both circumstantial and me not understanding the reality of things and being to quick to settle.

I talk to developers from all categories: new grads in the bay area bragging about offers at companies and startups you've heard of, experienced guys in the midwest who claim to still be able to take home salaries unheard of in any other field, or guys who have a decade of experience, but struggle to find a role to pivot into, and all sorts of others.

What always strikes me is they seem to live in different worlds. I had always considered local market to be the big differentiator, but the more I speak to people in the same market with wildly different experiences I start to question that. Particularly in this time where remote work should in theory expose more opportunity to people tied to local markets for whatever reason. Type of company seems to be the big differentiator here, and I don't mean in domain/industry or a tech/non-tech oversimplified manor.

Instead of noticed personally, that the only companies willing to talk to me are very similar to the ones I've worked for in the past. This isn't even about the "stack" being used either, but more about the organization. Similarly people working in prestigious companies seem to be targeted by other prestigious companies. But the interesting divide to me is not upper bound/lower bound, but lower bound/middle bound. People who claim to be commanding impressive salaries while doing run-of-the mill, not particularly intense or specialized work at no name companies, but are talking about median salaries above what any roles I've ever seen is willing to offer. These aren't even in high CoL cities all the time, but the numbers I could likely get cap out at least a few dozen thousand below the quoted median salaries without moving into management.

The problem of course, is when you're in the lower "classes" and want to move up. Especially at the experienced level, where you're expected in more desirable roles to have experience with X or Y, but the roles in your past never could have given you the exposure to that. The typical move seems to be to grind leetcode and pray you can get an offer through some avenue or another, but most people agree cold-applications are a waste of time, and the sort of recruiters you need are not the ones reaching out to you. Referrals seem to be the best shot here. Personally I never figured out networking. I've typically jumped more often and more quickly than my immediate colleagues, due to severe underpayment in my earliest years at places most people settle and become lifers.

I actually enjoy discussing things like this, so if it doesn't get buried by the hundreds of other comments, so please tell me why I'm wrong/right/etc. This was probably an very poor description as the idea is still rather abstract up in my head.