Yep. I was lucky and lucky I had a network. Lots of people probably ended up working at Starbucks or, at least, working in at best peripherally connected occupations that paid a fraction of what they were making or what they expected to make.

Certainly, in my case, lucky as I was, it wasn't until my next job that I was really making "good" compensation a decade or so later.

There was a period when the $200K-$300K job was a given for many in development. Easy for that to vanish in a puff.