I do work in the Bay Area. Santa Clara, San Mateo, and San Francisco counties all have median household incomes over $100k. It’s not at all unusual for a single software engineer to be in that ballpark. Look at college graduate incomes and you will find software engineering compensation even less exceptional. At the national level, anyway, personal college graduate incomes around the same as overall household incomes.
Living in California recently I actually met a few software engineers that were driving Uber as their second job, because their SWE salary was not enough. This really shocked me.
It’s enough to be okay, certainly, but not enough for the lifestyle you would have anticipated by getting an education and entering a lucrative white collar field.
