A little background for myself:

I've had a couple jobs. First was a student sys admin at U of MN computer science dept at about $10/hour (I think). Then in the Army where I made around $30k by the time I got out.

My next job in the industry was a relatively small company in the Portland area and there I made about $47k when I left and all new grads/entry level people were being offered $40k, no exceptions. The people there that had 5-10 years of experience were only making in the $65k range. And the senior developer/general manager was only making about $100k.

When I was offered the job I asked for $55k which I thought was really pushing it for only having some experience developing stuff in the army and in my classes.

So, what gives? What's with the Buick sized disconnect between my experiences and what I hear being discussed here on HN? Is there really a 40k difference in salaries just based on location?

All in all I consider myself a very good programmer (Honestly I'd guess in the top 80% of programmers, I haven't met one that's better than myself, but I don't consider myself nearly as experienced as a lot of the people here) that's passionate about coding and I've been doing it since I was in middle school, so I really want to be able to value myself accurately, but something just feels off about it. Looking at everything going on I'm thinking of leaving grad school if I can get offers like this?

Am I just marketing myself wrong? Any feedback would be appreciated.

You can check me out at github.com/solarmist or http://www.linkedin.com/pub/joshua-olson/5/521/88b.