Hmm... that sounds sky-high. Couple of my friends are working for startups in the NYC area, and making $60k (they're all recent graduates). They're really smart and really good at what they do.

A lot of my acquaintances are working at those various Wall Street firms earning about $85k.

Finally, I have a friend who switched to Google NYC after about 9 months at a Wall Street firm (at $85k). Google started him off at $150k. But um, that's Google...

I didn't know people made so much in NYC. I thoughts these $200k jobs were only found in the Californian wonderland of Silicon Valley :-/

I even have a friend who did Computer Engineering (not CS) at college, and found a job involving low-level assembly/C programming for embedded systems. The company said they'd pay him $18/hour for the first few months; and if they liked him, they'd hire him for real at $60k. Phew. (This company is actually in Long Island.)

I'm always bemused by the sky-high consulting rates & salaries I hear on HN. I'm not sure if I live on the same planet...