I spent most of my career on the “enterprise dev” side of the bimodal distribution of tech compensation. I only landed on the BigTech side by doing a slight pivot (cloud consulting).

I don’t see the day coming anytime soon that the divide narrows where it does make sense to be on the “enterprise dev” side (where most developers are) over the $BigTech side.

I’m objectively good enough at all of the areas that the article lists - I have to be to succeed in true “consulting” (as opposed to staff augmentation). But that wouldn’t have mattered unless I jumped ship to the $BigTech side.

Most outside consulting companies aren’t paying their top employees what I make as a mid level employee at my current job.

I have one or two connections I could probably leverage on the enterprise dev side that would allow me to make more if I jumped ship. But that’s only because I have $BigTech experience on my resume.

I’m not disagreeing with you. Even before working at $BigTech, I could throw my resume up in the air and get a job as a developer without doing the leetCode monkey dance because I had the skills you listed and I spoke directly to CxOs and Directors at small companies based on my network.

I haven’t done a coding interview in over a decade.