If an engineer can get a job at one of these companies, and work on exciting & fulfilling work, what’s the incentive to work elsewhere if you get paid a fraction of what you’re worth?
But also "work on exciting & fulfilling work"? Hasn't it already been established in previous discussions that the average engineer at Google or wherever may not be doing the most fulfilling of work, becoming a cog in a larger machine, as opposed at a startup? There's only so many roles that gives both high big tech pay and meaningful individual contribution.
With absolutely no offense intended, I've never been offered one of those FAANG-grade packages, so if you were, hypothetically, to try to hire me away from a present position, I would have to insist: fuck you, pay me, I won't leave things I already like to get the same middling compensation.
Because — A lot of the time when you see a company complaining about how difficult it is to hire “good engineers”, when you look closer, what you’ll really see is manager(s) (in denial) who really want to hire top-20% engineers at bargain rates.
Because you’re spouse wants to be close to family and there’s no tech where family is located?