4 years experience at 140k is an insult IMHO. You claim you can easily find ppl w 5+ years experience, but I find that claim dubious. What you're willing to pay and what value we add seem to be vastly different.
You're attitude reflects part of the problem. There are a bunch of still relatively new people or especially boot camp grads that were sold on the always unrealistic expectation of making $150k right out of the gate. That was always a bubble that wasn't sustainable, but now a bunch of tech workers feel entitled to it rather than being willing to adjust to reality and be grateful for the fact that most of us can make over $100k relatively quickly. Compared to most other jobs in the US tech is still one of the best places to get into, I have a friend who has her master's degree and has been teaching for close to 15 years who is estatic about recently getting a raise to $75k. I have another friend that works as a project and procurement manager in the construction field and after 4 years and with a degree he was still making < $80k.
When all that is considered some new "full stack developer" (which really means "I can do JS so I can do full stack if you're backend is mongo your app server is Node and your fronted is React, no I can't do jQuery that was never covered in our 2 weeks on frontend") acting insulted at $140k sounds spoiled, whiney and entitled.
There is not just one “tech” industry that hire software engineers.
FAANG employees like to tell themselves that their salaries are/were well deserved and not merely the result of a bubble, but a lot of them are finding out the hard way that that isn't the case.
All I can say is there are a lot of people with 10-15 yrs experience who will happily accept $140-150k with 10+ yrs experience in the US remote market (more specifically full stack node/react)
It is noteworthy that you did not provide any.
Adding to the anecdotes: Plenty of people in my company with 5+ years of experience make less than $150K.
You don’t even have to do that. Go to levels.fyi and look at the compensation for places like Delta, Walmart or one of the insurance companies
First, salaries are still local, so 140k may be an "insult" in some places, but not in others.
But more importantly, this is the market at work. If the recruiter can get talent for what she's willing to pay, more power to her. If the ex-shopify person can get a comparable job for 175k, more power to them.
But there is an adjustment to be had. The free money spigot has dried up for many companies, and so the salaries of the past 5ish years are in for a reckoning.
Wow…I think you have that mixed up. You have a very inflated view of the value you add at only 4 years of experience. I am nearing 4 decades in tech and I can count on one hand the number of devs (out of hundreds) have met in my career that when they were at 4 years of experience brought enough value to justify a $140k salary in 2023 dollars.
And it’s not a lottery ticket. Have you seen the stats of developer/revenue for Google, Microsoft and Facebook?
It’s a lot lower for Amazon because of the warehouse workers, drivers etc and Apple because of Apple retail
Those are incompatible in my experience.
So I think there's value in reflecting why some job offer felt insulting. It may help the person recognize some thoughts or worries that were lurking in his mind.
On a less touchy-feely level, getting an "insulting" job offer can be a useful data point regarding the state of the job market, and/or that particular employer.