I don't really blame either the engineers or the small companies. There's just a market situation right now where engineers who can get an offer from one of the big tech firms, are willing to live where they're located, and mostly just care about salary (which there's absolutely nothing wrong with) should probably just take that offer. No one else, except maybe big fintech, is probably going to be able to compete on salary. That's just the way the market is right now.
