[lucidbee]

I think there is a structural problem here that we are avoiding. The reason some higher ups don't see the merit of particular individual developers is that their pay does not reflect their contribution. Pay is the simple metric that should reflect worth, but we don't use 10x or 100x pay scales. We are failing to pay stars and superstars in accordance with the value they contribute to company. profits.

[jpgvm]

This is something I fail to understand. no-one blinks an eye when proposing a high performing CEO he compensated appropriately but propose the same for an engineer and everyone looks at you funny unless you give them a VP title and saddle them with a bunch of non-technical responsibilities in the process. If an engineer is the crucial individual in creating and delivering a product that the companies profits are derived from they should also receive appropriate performance based compensation in line with senior management, perhaps even more as senior management is definitely more fungible (namely C level roles like CFO, etc).