In my view, I have observed many good, underpaid engineers because they choose stability over higher pay. Most people are happy with slow and stead pay rises while working at the same company. Companies know this and pay accordingly. Only your top 1-10% of employees need more careful "TLC" to give higher raises and regular off-cycle feedback: "You're doing great. We are giving you a special raise for your efforts." You can mostly afford to lose the rest.
I guess that's how we got here to begin with. We take a workforce and treat is as expendable instead of as a proper team.
I suppose it will vary per industry but I can't imagine an other kind of engineering being comfortable just letting go of people mid-project because "we can afford to lose them".
