I just wanted to share my experience at my current job and show a bit that even when I'm not getting paid an adequate amount, I still want to work here for the time being just because of the great work environment.
I work in software engineering and this is an entry level job. I work from home on a flexible schedule. I can work at whatever time I like, except for meetings, that are not too many. My boss is the absolute best; he is really knowledgeable and very approachable in regards of running into roadblocks and helping us out. He is a professor as well and is really good at explaining things. I learned more in the first months of this job, than I ever did in school.
We also do some mock presentations to the team, in order to practice doing presentations to a bigger audience. We can present on whatever we want that is technology related, so we can present on things we are passionate about. Even though some of the presentations are sometimes on things that are very niche and very not well known, my boss always relays his experience to the thing that is being presented. I have yet to see something that he doesn't know.
My boss is really caring and the ultimate goal for him is not for us to stay there forever, but to help us keep growing and find better opportunities as they arise. He prepares us for bigger things and cares about our future deeply. Previous employees still keep in contact with him and he sounds very proud of them and what they have done when he talks about them.
I will keep learning from him and be on this job for as long as I can. Sometimes the value of a job is not only about the money you can make, but the future opportunities that arise and the amount of knowledge you get. It is definitely not his fault for us to be paid so low, since this is an applied research job funded by the government. He gets us raises as much as he can, even going as far as to rejecting raises some years, in order to give those to us.