It's the same in Silicon Valley. Software developers are a "cost center" and balance sheets and accounting reflect that - even at companies like Google.
I've spent large chunks of my career in the Midwest as a consultant. Senior devs go into very long term consulting gigs because then companies can afford to pay us much more: we count as 100% capex.
Companies that might pay an employee $110K a year will have zero problem paying rates that end up with take-homes of +$200K a year after paying your own benefits and taking vacation time off.
Actually, assuming you're not just maintaining a code base (i.e. you're mostly adding features or making something new), the cost of software development is typically an asset on the balance sheet
