[cortesoft]

No one has ever had their salary set by JUST the value they provide for the company. If anything, the value they provide is simply the CEILING for how much an employer would pay them; if they paid them more, they would be losing money and it would be better to not have the employee at all.

Employers pay the least amount they can in order to attract and keep an employee. That pride is set by supply and demand.

Remote work vastly increases the supply of available workers, which will drive down wages. While it also increases the number of companies that need employees, most of the ones that aren't in the major tech centers aren't really competing for those highest salary engineers; they simply don't generate enough value from an engineer to be able to afford those higher salaries.