Not only that, but to me that entire rubric for the self-assessment of skill is extremely off-putting. It's also baffling to me that the salaries they peg again

Not only that, but to me that entire rubric for the self-assessment of skill is extremely off-putting. It's also baffling to me that the salaries they peg against are salaries of start-ups and certain VC-backed companies. Why isn't it the case that you base your salaries against every other place in the world trying to hire the same people you are? It's not defensible to say, well we pay $130k for that kind of developer because AZ companies also pay in that range, and so does Blue Apron, ENSO Financial, and Spotify (or whomever). That's silly. Because DE Shaw, Google, Coatue, Two Sigma, Comcast, Capital One, Amazon, Facebook, or a host of others might be willing to hire that same developer for that same type of role with similar benefits and they are certainly paying more than this. You're always competing for talent against anyone else trying to hire the same people. Not against one particular niche set of companies who are similar to you in some superficial on-paper ways. That just seems like a very unfortunate way of determining what their idea of a "market rate" is.