Except none of my friends in the bay area make that little. In fact, few of my friends in their late 20s are making under $200k a year in terms of what they write on their tax returns (total compensation package).
Your experience and the "average" typically are not comparable.
Usually it's not $200k salary, but compensation package. A typical example is:
$165k base salary, $25k annual bonus, $40k stock.
Sorry, I won't mention any particular companies, but if you're close to anyone at a major software firm, you should easily be able to find out what it's like.
Washington D.C. Avg Software Engineer salary: 102k http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Software-Engineer-l-Washingto...
Bay Area Avg Software Engineer salary: 113k http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Software-Engineer-Bay-Area-l-...
Except none of my friends in the bay area make that little. In fact, few of my friends in their late 20s are making under $200k a year in terms of what they write on their tax returns (total compensation package).
Your experience and the "average" typically are not comparable.