Companies are willing to pay a lot for the right skills. I am an Engineer and pulling in 75K annually. For a while, I thought I make decent money and that salary.com is bs for saying I should be making around 90K. But one of my friend just got a 20% increase, from 92K to 110K. Another one from 70K to 100K, so a 25%-50% increase is not unheard of. This makes it very hard for me not to look for a new job.