> Why are programmers not treated like CEOs in terms of pay levels?
Because of scope of impact. The scope of impact of a CEO is the entirety of a company. A bad CEO can destroy a company, a good CEO can make the company financially successful and desirable to work at. A regular engineer, or even a lead/staff engineer is mostly scoped to their own product, and have little ability to impact the future of the greater company.
Why do military generals get credit when it's their soldiers who actually participate in combat and risk their lives? Because the decisions of a general have a much higher scope of impact.
You could argue that being the soldier (or engineer) is harder than being the general (or ceo), but that doesn't change the fact that having the best engineer won't save a struggling company, while a good CEO can.
So, companies (wisely) pay a pretty penny to have a good CEO, because it's worth it.
Yes, precisely. Now if you have a really brilliant engineer who could found a 100 million plus company, but they're working for you by some twist of fate instead - if you treat them like a code monkey they're going to hate it, and you're wasting their potential. This is what e.g. Google does. On the other hand if you empower them and get the fuck out the way, they may well surprise you.
> but they're working for you by some twist of fate instead - if you treat them like a code monkey they're going to hate it, and you're wasting their potential.
Well no one is forced to work anywhere, especially if they don't like it. Fact of the matter is that there is more support for entrepreneurs today than ever before, especially in tech. Electric scooters are getting $100 million funding rounds. There is more than enough support for this brilliant engineer to create his successful company.
Because of scope of impact. The scope of impact of a CEO is the entirety of a company. A bad CEO can destroy a company, a good CEO can make the company financially successful and desirable to work at. A regular engineer, or even a lead/staff engineer is mostly scoped to their own product, and have little ability to impact the future of the greater company.
Why do military generals get credit when it's their soldiers who actually participate in combat and risk their lives? Because the decisions of a general have a much higher scope of impact.
You could argue that being the soldier (or engineer) is harder than being the general (or ceo), but that doesn't change the fact that having the best engineer won't save a struggling company, while a good CEO can.
So, companies (wisely) pay a pretty penny to have a good CEO, because it's worth it.