market rate =/= "most extreme salaries from the largest tech companies". By statistical definition, the highest salaries can't be the median income for newgrads.

Both of these statements are true. Neither of them is what I meant.

As a follow up to your edit: I think we agree on what market rate is, but what market rate actually is for tech is subject to a wide variety of answers. So that may be where the discrepancy comes from.

that and the article in question giving questionable numbers like:

>50-70k is a junior’s salary. Your people with 10 years of experience with C++ or whatever should be paid closer to 300k

50-70K out of school is normal in the US, but not necessarily all of US (70K in expensive areas like San Fransisco would be low balling, even as a new grad). 300K, even after 10 years, is not normal, not unless you started at a top company and/or have been aggressively chasing pay raises, internally or through job hopping.

BUT, while abnormal it's also not a surprising number to hear either. It depends on so many factors.

Note that 70k for one person in SF is considered low income/needs assistance/basically not a living wage by hud.gov. The bare minimum is somewhere around 90k.

At about ~140k for one person, you will still have difficulty renting a single housing unit because you will not be able to meet % of income = rent calculations. I have experience with this (and unrelenting corporate managed rentals charging several hundred in nonrefundable application fees just to reject for low income at 6 digits..).

Interesting, thanks!

That’s like saying that if you can’t pay Ronaldo’s salary you shouldn’t be running a football team

Am I not understanding what "market rate" means. I bought my care at market rate, it costed less than a lambo. But it also didn't cost $10.

"market rate" usually applies to a single good (or goods that are fungible between themselves). i think for your car or engineers we would say there are many different markets depending on skill level, location, nationality etc

The mistake is that companies want a certain quality standard for as low a price as possible, which means their salary expectations don't match their quality standards but they put out press releases telling everyone that it's not the case.

True, although I assume that also applies to footballers...

Maybe. There diminishing returns as you hire more and more people, so it's also possible the company works with an engineering org of 50, but not 200.