What I've heard from leadership at more than one company is that they choose a percentile of the market they want to pay and then set the compensation there. Fo

What I've heard from leadership at more than one company is that they choose a percentile of the market they want to pay and then set the compensation there. For example, they may say "we want to pay at the 75th percentile for SWEs with X experience in the Bay Area". I certainly don't trust that this doesn't hold wages down overall, particularly in the boom hiring market we had until recently.