Comment by dgb23

Bonuses make a lot of sense in the financial sector, because the whole endeavor is about making money. Intrinsic motivation and making more money align. Historically it got introduced in order to mitigate cheating customers for personal gain. Also it helps that individual contributions are trivially quantifiable to a very large degree.

Obviously there are other professions that share some of these characteristics, like sales. Or if you narrow down a goal or task to "save us money".