That's great when you have the ability to forego potential salary.

It's also why manufactured scarcity (especially in housing) enables people who wish to apply engineering effort in unethical ways.

If 10 engineers are bidding on 5 houses, the 5 highest-paid ones will get it. Any pay raise they get will get dumped in to their house - give them all 100k raises and the house will go up by whatever another 100k a year in mortgage payments gets you (I simplify, but not that much)

Not only that, those 5 highly-paid engineers who got the houses have every incentive to make it illegal to build more.

It's hard to stick to your principles when it means getting kicked out of your home, pulling your kids out of school, your spouse having to move away from their job, etc.

It's not just housing, of course, it's a huge part of it. The engineer with a $750 a month mortgage will have a MUCH easier time saying "fuck off this is evil" than one with a $7500 a month mortgage.

First, no one is talking about getting paid incredibly less (especially if you factor in COLA). It's more generally about not maximizing for only salary. Second, unless you want to work in one of the big companies, why work where it is only engineers bidding on houses? Engineers have the luxury right now of taking less pay and still making much more than a large majority of the population.

He's describing, hyperbolically but not wholly inaccurately, the Bay Area housing market.