If you have 10 engineers of roughly equal skill competing for the same role, the company has more leverage to offer lower comp than if there’s just 1, or less than one.
Profitability just sets a cap on what can be paid.
That being said, I do agree that the best of the best will likely be able to maintain mid 6 figure comps. But it won’t be the norm as it has been.
There’s also theory vs practice. In practice very few companies have a high level of confidence about being able to quantify how much one engineer is worth vs another. Which is why 10x engineers can’t capture significantly higher comp than the median, even in the current (recent) market
Similar for Big 3 consulting firms (BCG, Bain, McKinsey) in that there is a huge application pool for positions but they are difficult to get and provide high pay.
But in those cases the number of jobs is much more limited than was the case in tech in recent years.
Finance is a similar example. Bankers get paid a lot, but the number of them has been pretty static.
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