Yes, this. There are a lot of engineers out there that spend a most of their time in meetings, or writing design docs, or reviewing code, or a few dozen other

Yes, this. There are a lot of engineers out there that spend a most of their time in meetings, or writing design docs, or reviewing code, or a few dozen other thing that are not actually writing code. Much of that can’t be automated away. If you could get a machine to do much of the programming, that just leaves you with more time to work on the harder problems the business has to deal with, which likely means you’re able to deliver more value, and thus deserve more money. And just think about it, what were Cobol and Fortran developers paid way back in the day? Not nearly as much as an engineer with comparable experience and education as someone today. They were also far rarer in breed. Engineers are paid much more today because the better tools we have now make us more productive and more capable of unlocking business value. Paying an engineer $500K today is worth it if they’re able to unlock $5 million in profits.