Earlier quoted context omitted.
$38,900 USD is $18.70/hr working only 40 hr/wk. That isn't even minimum wage in some areas anymore. Well, you know what they say: If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. EDIT: For comparison, a MAANG engineer makes around $250k USD.
In new york that's below McDonald's fry cook employee pay. Also maang total compensation for Sr engineer roles is about 400k+
The variance varies widely, but you're incorrect according to my salary negotiator who has hard data in hand. I was an IC6 at MAANG and 400k was only attainable by the top end of IC6+. Most people were paid around 250-300k.
There are a few rare birds (ICs) paid 500k-1.2M, but they're either core contributors to a key tech the company uses, a main person of a core FOSS project, or some sort of tech celebrity. Managers also make quite a bit more. I recall a 2nd-level manager for some big Google product making 2.7M TC.