Only when working hourly with a guaranteed contract does "engineering your own path" necessarily result in extra compensation. A rational person will put in effort up to (but not past) the point where that marginal extra effort results in an a commensurate expected marginal reward.

Assuming you're rational, say you're paid $P for Q output. If you thought you had a 75% chance to get $P+10% for producing Q+5% output, you'd be right to work harder and produce that extra output. If, on the other hand, you thought you had a 10% chance to get $P+100% for producing Q+50% output, you would not accept that.