Funny, I was going to say that artists more closely resemble our profession than engineers.
Engineers are mostly standardized, and the salary range reflects that. There are some very well compensated engineers, but the bulk do okay, doing normal work.
And critically, a board certified engineer stamp is an engineering stamp. Regardless of who it comes from.
On the other hand, artist compensation is directly correlated to ability to market yourself, current trends, and overall skill.
You have artists who are struggling to make it a job (in our world: entry level web design, analysts), artists who are doing okay with careers (enterprise software dev), entrepreneurual artists (startups), and superstars.
And critically... their degrees tell you almost nothing about which category they're going to be in.
That's interesting. I guess it depends on perspective - yes you could be a "rockstar" dev who talks at conferences and makes gajillions writing scalable MVP's for SV-funded startups. In which case, yes, your value is directly linked to your ability to market yourself.
But most aren't. Most devs clock in, write some code, clock out, go home, do something completely different. It's a job. They operate inside the salary bands of their organisation, and they do okay, doing normal work.
Engineers are mostly standardized, and the salary range reflects that. There are some very well compensated engineers, but the bulk do okay, doing normal work.
And critically, a board certified engineer stamp is an engineering stamp. Regardless of who it comes from.
On the other hand, artist compensation is directly correlated to ability to market yourself, current trends, and overall skill.
You have artists who are struggling to make it a job (in our world: entry level web design, analysts), artists who are doing okay with careers (enterprise software dev), entrepreneurual artists (startups), and superstars.
And critically... their degrees tell you almost nothing about which category they're going to be in.