Those same companies pay much more in the same metro areas for different titles, working on those small profit margin items you speak of, like electric vehicles

Those same companies pay much more in the same metro areas for different titles, working on those small profit margin items you speak of, like electric vehicles and satellites. Journeyman software developer plunking along in a middling role gets A; while a mechanical engineer, with graduate degrees and who actually grasps the material, writing well-formed Modelica code, gets B. That made me go "hmm."