Plus it costs a lot more than salary to employ an engineer. You also need to pay hosting and operating costs for the product, office and technology support cost

Plus it costs a lot more than salary to employ an engineer. You also need to pay hosting and operating costs for the product, office and technology support costs, support personnel costs (hiring, HR, procurement, secretarial, finance, payroll), business insurance. All of that needs to be amortized across the 'front line' costs. The cost of employing someone is generally about double what you actually pay them and can be a lot more.