Do we get respect as SWE in EU? In every eu state I have been, except maybe uk in some sector, there was the meme that we are "the new blue collar workers" and indeed in a lot of places salaries were pretty much aligned
For the rest of the world, or even just the rest of the US, to expect exceptionally high compensation in order to feel respected is unreasonable in my opinion. Software is an incredible tool and I'm glad to still find ways to love it, but as a profession, it's just like any other.
I have felt this way for a while, because I feel we can do a lot more meaningful work within our communities with software than we currently do. But all the developers are instead busy building Nudity in Kettle Reflection algorithms for market place image uploaders while getting rained on by VC money.
Simply becase software development sucks thinking and knowledge from the product/sales/manager silos.
To make things works you have to know much more than many managers do. Effectively you do the digging, the thinking, the analysis, the design - via tooling or via POCs directly, and SDE is the sink who gets everything that other folks didn't think or care.
It's not like Uber driver who drives you where you want. It's more like baby-sitter who also serves like a Virgil, a guide in the hell, and who takes all the risks.
The bubbles that did however did incredibly well compared to the rest of the market. And often crushed traditional companies with a traditional view Software and engineers.
> Software is an incredible tool and I'm glad to still find ways to love it, but as a profession, it's just like any other.
The thing is, software scales almost infinitely. For a doctor to double his output, he'd have to put in twice the hours. For a software engineers to double his. But a 10x userbase growth? Happens overnight at some companies. That's where it's different.