[neilv]

Maybe the more obvious metrics for sales enable the top performers to demonstrate that they are top performers, and therefore demand the high compensation?

A similarly-minded SWE, on the other hand, doesn't have the metrics. Either they're at a FAANG and trying to hit their less-obvious metrics for promotions, or they're instead just packing fresh keywords on their resume, and preparing to refresh Leetcode and job-hop every 18 months, to increase their compensation that way.

(I still don't want to do metrics for engineering; I want engineering thinking and working holistically, as a team -- for the interests of the company, even though leadership won't understand most of the subtle differences of what a great engineering team does for the company. The current SWE careerism grinding mis-alignments will have to end, though, once people acknowledge that we really need SWE not to be, as XKCD said, "our entire field is bad at what we do, and if you rely on us, everyone will die".)