At one company I worked at, after I quit, they had to hire 19 engineers to rebuild the piece of software I built on my own. What took me 9 months took them a year. I quit because they wouldn't give me a raise. Even the CTO recognized to me that I was the most skilled programmer there. I don't think talent is that hard to spot and while I agree measuring programming productivity in a concrete manner is difficult, knowing who's above average isn't hard.
Seems more to me that managers just don't want to fork over higher salaries and engineering is looked at as a cost center to be minimized.
Seems more to me that managers just don't want to fork over higher salaries and engineering is looked at as a cost center to be minimized.