[Followerer]

Do you think a multi-billion corporation would pay a low level employee an extra million just because they can? You may overestimate the value of individual engineers, big corporations don't. That's how they become big. The money they make is the difference between the value of your work and the money you make. The smartest and best connected people in the company are working to make that gap as wide as possible.

[hemdawgz]

Yes, but if this engineer's achievements are well known, competition between companies is what drives crazy comp because they are seen more like a strategic asset rather than another engineer. They wouldn't quite be a low-level employee, these unicorn ICs often report directly to middle management or above. I'm surprised how little industry experience some of these commenters seem to have given that it's HN.

[Followerer]

Competitors are also multi-billion corporations. I do work for one of those big multi-billion corporations, it's my second, and I've also worked for others not so big. Only newbie engineers fresh out of college believe the myth of the genius engineer who gets grossly overcompensated because they're so smart. You can find 10s of thousands of brilliant engineers in any of these companies, that's the bottom line. Not a single one of them is, on their own, irreplaceable. Specially valuable individuals get awarded distinctions like "fellow" or "distinguished". They're valuable, more than anything else, because of their contacts and rapport within the industry. It's never technical competency; not that they're technically incompetent, but most of their underlings will likely be more technically competent than them (if they're smart, after all, they will do the technical work). If you haven't figure this out yet, don't worry, you'll get there.

[hemdawgz]

You clearly don't work for one of the ones that grant 7 figure salaries. I'm not saying they're common or that any engineer can aspire to achieve one, I'm saying they exist, I've seen it first hand, and I don't understand why it's so hard for you to accept they exist. Nothing in your comment constitutes novel insight to me, and neither of us have a good measure as to which of us have more credibility than the other, but I suspect you're just judging based on your own narrow experience.

Edit, just for more context I'm speaking of FAANG level companies here and very rare individual unicorn engineers who have been specifically hired into these kinds of positions for past achievements that have impact across the whole industry. I would agree with your general skepticism in any other context.

[Followerer]

As I said, I'm on my second FAANG. The "very rare individuals" you mention are hired L9 or above. That is, distinguished engineers+. You don't get to L9 with "a valuable technical contribution", you get there because people know who you are, you have strong network of connections within the industry, and you are in a position to make strategic decisions. It's very much not a technical position, it's borderline executive. Let's put it this way, the people with that kind of compensation, you know who they are. It's never an anonymous whizz kid who's very good at solving technical problems, it's the guy who hired them and/or knows how to direct their work.

As you said, you don't know me and I don't know you, so I don't have a reason to doubt your word. If you say you've met engineers who get that kind of compensation, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Everyone I've met or I've known to be in that level of compensation were the people I already knew were making that kind of money.