I asked if they would offer bonuses to compensate or if they'd consider paying the other guy the same salary, because he seemed smart enough. No to both, and I

I asked if they would offer bonuses to compensate or if they'd consider paying the other guy the same salary, because he seemed smart enough. No to both, and I felt that alone indicated that management there didn't value engineering talent. That's awesome that you vouched for the other guy. And I wonder what technical experience management or upper-level execs had at that company. I find that when there's very little to none at those levels in the company, they'll tend to be similar to what you described. Ultimately they view engineers as a commodity resource and try to get by with the "cheapest" deal they can. I've found many of the same companies also suffer from high turnover, and turn a blind eye to the long term drag that imposes on their software. For companies that profit in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a year (e.g. the company I mentioned previously), I think it's silly they resort to offering market, or below market, wages to save a few bucks (relatively speaking) vs. striving to have happier employees, and retaining them for a longer period of time.