[bdangubic]

the coolest thing "the big tech" was able to do is convince a whole bunch ridiculously smart people that they only place they can make $500k is with them. I personally (I am just one person) know more than 10 people not working for big tech making (some significantly) north of $500k as SWEs and doing awesome sh*t (unlike I would un-intelligently guess most of big tech employees)

[seattle_spring]

Sure, there are some jobs that match your description, likely for people that can brand themselves "AI engineers" for a rocketship company like OpenAI. Their number is absolutely miniscule compared to the number of big-tech jobs.