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> You don't have to be a star programmer

> 250k-350k

> land an HFT gig

Respectfully, your perspective may be a bit skewed? OP's context was "us rank-and-file employee number 12887's".

Many people working in these companies are as rank-and-file as it gets. Non existent public profile, no open source contributions, no flashy portfolio.

Not really in the same category as Carmack

That's fair! I had interpreted OP's post more along the lines of, well, workers who aren't that in-demand or that high up the pay scale - I think it's fair to say 300k salaries and HFT gigs are out of consideration for most of us.

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