But also because the exec has more power. More power over budgets, over the company, a closer relationship with the people who decide their salary, etc. We just have power over the tech, which may be vital, but it's not power we leverage very hard.

While it may seem that way a lead engineer has more actual ability to swing outcomes than an executive. I can save or loose my company millions in a month but my exec can’t even get us 1-2 people without 3 months of paperwork. He can’t allocate more than 5k in capital without months of review. And he works 60-80hrs a week requesting status. It’s a total joke that he Gets paid 3-4x what engineers do

Was that an executive or a middle manager? It sounds like the latter. But you're absolutely right that it's weird that the people who's job it is to enable engineers, get paid more than the engineers who do the actual work.

You can’t tell the difference but he gets executive pay and title

In this example, how much are these average engineers making? Usually, even at FAANG, less than 10% of them will command a 500k peak-SV salary. So for the rest, 50k each is a sizeable amount of money. In my experience, this is 2x the average yearly bonus.