The simple answer is: yes and even more than that.

When I asked the question on Twitter, I asked it as follows:

One problem is that I used the phrase "third world." I should have used "developing countries."

My inspiration for the question was this tweet that is part of a thread:

In case someone doesn't already know, a first important observation is that people usually talk about annual salary in the USA (and in some European countries). In other words, 100 thousand dollars is equivalent to 8,333.33 dollars per month.

I do not know precisely how it works, but USA vacations are negotiated company by company, and there is no Christmas bonus. Some companies pay for one or more benefits (health plan, stock participation, etc.). I think this is what Tyler Young is talking about when he writes "total compensation." In other words, the person gets, for example, 180,000 in cash and 20,000 in "benefits."

Another observation is that Tyler Young talks about senior developer people working with Elixir. But these salary levels are not exclusive to Elixir. They apply to many (not all) other technologies. In my tweet, I asked the question about Elixir and Erlang because the Elixir-Erlang-BEAM community is where most of my contacts are.

From the answers I got, some of them private, it is possible to earn even more than 100 thousand dollars per year. One person (who is not Brazilian but is from a developing country) said that he receives 165 thousand dollars per year. Some others said they received around 100 thousand dollars.

Can I be sure that what they told me is true? Not. But I trust the people who spoke to me. Considering that Silicon Valley companies can quickly pay up to $350,000 per year, it is not extraordinary to pay $165,000 to an excellent developer working remotely from a developing country.

What about you? What do you think? Is it possible?