I've worked in tech for 30 years and never experienced a single company that does math the way you describe: "I.T. generates or saves us $X million per year therefore we'll share that with frontline developers." Ha, puhleez.

In my experience, you'd consider yourself lucky to work for a company that sees I.T. as a strategic/operational advantage (and not merely a "cost center") and therefore pays its staff 10% better than market average plus bonuses.

Unfortunately, I've worked for truly "I.T. forward" companies like that and still seen a merger or buyout completely flip the culture. Overnight I.T. salaries and budgets were seen as indulgences and people were laid off or quit in droves.

The one thing I've learned about this industry is that no matter how innovative or adept an engineering department is, an exuberantly stupid executive team can completely squander and destroy that asset surprisingly quickly.

> therefore we'll share that with frontline developers." Ha, puhleez.

Like I said "if they had to".

You still have to make a compelling case.

Surely you have seen teams with 3 solution architects when they don't even really require 1?

Or teams with contractors who have been in the same team on contract 5+ years?

The problem is most senior devs don't even collect the information they need to make a compelling case.

Like if I asked you how much more productive are you than a new (3-6months) senior dev on your project? Would you be able to show me?

I'm ~14x more productive on my current project than a newly hired senior dev and can give you the jira queries to prove it.