Earlier quoted context omitted.
We've recently started hiring for a junior front-end position and we've stumbled upon code bootcamps graduates asking for 120k with one or two demo projects on their github. NYC Area, which I find absurd. Unsure if it's the mentors at those schools that are telling their students to ask for that much or the students themselves think that companies that want to hire juniors usually have that deep of a pocket.
I'd argue that it's absurd that we still think 120k is a lot of money when we look around at how expensive things like property are. My father, with a modest education and a modest first job, was able to get married, raise a child and buy a house near London well before he was 30. Property in that area is now worth hundreds of thousands and would require a six-figure salary (supposedly a lot of money!!) to be able to…
If you work for a company and produce a million in value every year and they pay you 100k for it, you are basically accepting that the company was 90% of the reason you made any value at all. For almost every single developer that is not true. On average you could probably make the exact same amount on contract / as a consultant. The fact the business is making fortunes off your work is just exploitative.
This also applies to way more industries than just software, its just most apparent in software because of how many ludicrous buckets of money big tech players are taking home each year while still paying their dev teams only 6 figures.
Your worth to a corporation is the amount of revenue you produce for their bottom line (or how much loss you offset). If you are making them way more money than they are paying you you are being taken advantage of, whether that be at 30k a year or 300k a year.