This is a problem with the software field as a whole. You hear a lot about salaries like this, so you start to assume that’s what everyone makes. In reality, the average salary might very well be $200k, but I’d guess that the median is more or less around $75k. Basically, while there are jobs that pay an insane amount, the vast majority of people aren’t getting them. In fact, I assume the average person with a CS degree or a bootcamp certificate is working an IT style job making $75k give or take

The second problem is that things like Glassdoor seem to struggle with differentiating titles. So many people who graduate with a CS degree or get a certificate end up as “Information Technology Analysts” or some title other than “Software Engineer”, so when Glassdoor says Software Engineers make $XYZ, keep in mind that there’s a very good chance you get some other title that’s paid less

Add to this that it’s actually hard and some people just aren’t good at it, combined with people pursuing it blindly bc money AND with the fact that technical interviews are a thing (ie your interviews aren’t behavioral alone, they test your programming / security skills extensively) ~ we end up with a relatively low median salary & a giant misconception that all “qualified” people have $200k tech jobs

The point is that while you can get a job like OP’s, unless you’re truly good at it and work very hard, you likely won’t get that. Your salary may still be super good compared to other fields ($75k isn’t bad), but you may be sad to find that you left something you loved just to plateau out and never break into that super-mega-high-paying sector

THAT BEING SAID, if you do have the mind for it & you don’t mind working hard ~ you can get a job like OP’s! Because if you work very hard, you’ll show your worth in technical interviews

This is all coming from me, a CS grad with a good software engineering job. I would say that of the ~200-300 people I knew (to varying extents) from my major, maybe like 50 of us have those good jobs and the rest are all working IT stuff or even something totally different. And 50/200 or 300 may seem like a ton but I went to a pretty good university, so the percentage will be higher than bootcamp programs

Just to stress one more time ~ if you have the brain for it and you work hard, you can get the nicer jobs. Tech interviews majorly benefit people who know their stuff. So if you become super skilled, you won’t struggle to find a great job (like OP)