I'm not sure we disagree. When you say "conceptualize and build", you may be talking about a developer-in-the-role-of-designer or developer-in-the-role-of-entrepreneur. Certainly Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. were once developers, but they didn't get rich because they were employed as coders and got a bunch of merit pay raises.

So I was simply speculating that there may be a "ceiling" on developer salaries, that is, salaries received for writing code.