By Paul Graham's description in that "Let in the 95%" article, companies are standing around with their dicks in their hands hoping that they find "the best" engineers, but on the cheap. If a company wants to hire 30 more "great" engineers, but isn't bumping up their pay to get at least 15 at a higher rate instead... there's something really off happening.
It's standard economic theory that wages are sticky. I think for a while, at least the past three years, junior developers (especially in web dev) have been overvalued and seniors undervalued. From my recent job search, I think this is starting to change, which is why the whole "not enough engineers" is reaching a fever pitch (ie, we can't find seniors at the traditionally understood market rate, as everyone realizes seniors are a better buy right now).
As it stands, career programmers in the US who are good but not celebrities generally try to move into management/consulting/whatever because their career stalls otherwise. Solve that problem (PAY MORE) and we've got our programmers.
It's standard economic theory that wages are sticky. I think for a while, at least the past three years, junior developers (especially in web dev) have been overvalued and seniors undervalued. From my recent job search, I think this is starting to change, which is why the whole "not enough engineers" is reaching a fever pitch (ie, we can't find seniors at the traditionally understood market rate, as everyone realizes seniors are a better buy right now).
As it stands, career programmers in the US who are good but not celebrities generally try to move into management/consulting/whatever because their career stalls otherwise. Solve that problem (PAY MORE) and we've got our programmers.