A thought on pay

I had a thought today: I hear much discussion on how much engineers get paid. Sometimes with a tone of “those greedy devs.”

But what does a low salary actually say about the company?

Maybe it is a signal that they don’t really know how to leverage engineers well which might be a frustrating experience too:

• Your time goes to endless backlog grooming, status meetings, or process theater.
• You won’t get the tools you need. A $20 license becomes a fight - never mind proper observability or a conference ticket.
• They can’t figure out what delivers value, so you spend three years polishing an intranet portal while the world moves on.

And that mentor you hoped to learn from? If the company underpays, they’re probably already working at the competitor.

Sure, money isn’t everything. But following it can be a decent proxy for places where your work matters, where people are sharp, and where engineering is seen as leverage, not overhead.

Sometimes, low pay isn’t just about the salary. It’s a symptom.

(Of course, this is just a thought, and a generalization. I don’t know if the same pattern applies outside of tech, but I wouldn’t be surprised.)