Comment by kmacdough

Generally, the mindset that makes the best engineers is an obsession with solving hard problems. Anecdotally, there's not a lot of overlap between the best engineers I know and the best paid engineers I know. The best engineers I know are too obsessed with solving problems to be sidetracked the salary game. The best paid engineers I know are great engineers, but the spend a large amount of time playing the salary game, bouncing between companies and are always doing the work that looks best on a resume, not the best work they know how to do.