Ask HN: How do SMBs afford such expensive software engineers in the US?
Fundamentally, software engineers aren&#x27;t a commodity. They&#x27;re not all created equal and they have their own desires and preferences which factor in to what they choose to do.<p>The FAANGs in the US will hire basically anybody, provided that person passes their interview process and is willing to physically relocate to one of their offices, which are usually located in major cities that have high costs of living (e.g. Bay Area, New York, Seattle, Boston) and therefore high compensation.<p>But there are many, many competent people in the US who aren&#x27;t willing to move to one of these major cities, who can&#x27;t pass the FAANG hiring bar, or don&#x27;t want to.<p>Those people may be willing to accept a lower-paying job because that suits them better.<p>It might also be worth considering if the role you&#x27;re thinking of as &quot;software engineer&quot; is actually a &quot;software engineer&quot;. Does an SMB really need a &quot;software engineer&quot;? Maybe what they need is a &quot;software developer&quot;, which on average receives a lower salary.