There's companies handling publicly available salary information for them, better than Levels can fight back against them. Same with Glassdoor. Coopting both. And the data isn't objective, they show different averages to different people. Same firms handle both, they're on the same lists, part of PR budget.

But it does give a vague idea.

Better than that get a better picture from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that does in fact compile that information for each job and is much harder to fuck with, it's illegal in fact.

Salary data on this forum seem pretty inflated, well it's very warped. It's all to make it seem there's a giant pot of gold at the end of the rainbow if your program compiles and you "get hired."

My father works construction and owns two houses in California, both paid off even. Although in the central valley.

If an apple engineer can't buy a house or two in the bay area, who can?