Software Engineers make a lot of money because their contributions have the potential to affect a lot of people.<p>Comparably, a nurse may have a positive impact on a dozen lives over the course of a week. A programmer&#x27;s contributions may affect thousands or millions and the positive effects compound over time. Even if it takes longer (comparable to other jobs) to accomplish anything meaningful.<p>Many developers don&#x27;t overcome the communication barriers with users to realize the impact their work has.<p>A task that could take somebody 5 hours a month can be automated to take 5 minutes with a program. Package and sell that program to thousands of users and, in terms of reducing operating costs, the software is a cash cow for any business in that domain.<p>Devs love to get caught up on theoretical minutae, CS fundamentals, testing coverage, methodologies, axe grinding over subjective preferences for frameworks&#x2F;styling, etc.<p>None of that matters. Your value is literally measured in your ability to enable others to earn money or save money.