Yeah, but you have to go up quite a few levels to make 10x the pay. E.g., a Google L5 makes (ballpark) $360k. An L8 makes (ballpark) $1M. That's only 3x higher, and you probably need a lot more than 10x impact to go L5 -> L8. An L4 makes $270k, still within ~1/4 of an L8. L3s are paid almost 200k, which is still ~1/5 of an L8.

I don't know what L9s or 10s are paid; it's probably highly variable and the total number are probably a handful.

Advancement at Google is tied heavily to being on the right projects to the extent that I think you're way overselling the extent to which the higher levels will be better at their jobs.

That seems plausible; I don’t work there. I think that further supports the argument that “10x engineers” are not paid 10x.

if the company is doing its job correctly, its paying the 10x engineer even less than the 1x engineer.

if the engineer is doing their job correctly, they are negotiating to be paid more than tne 1x

> paying the 10x engineer even less than the 1x engineer

Why is that a good idea? Isn't there a risk that s/he will then quit?

that's one way to get a lot of 1x engineers...