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I recall a story someone told me a while ago. Software business that did local CoL/prevailing wages. Hired an intern one summer that was just running around in circles around the other, more senior devs. Useless to say they loved him and the next summer they tried to get him back, even offering a signing bonus for an internship (something they considered unheard of) but he was already at a large search engine company down in the Bay. You can guess the comp was probably already 3x what his previous job was offering. Of course, he wouldn't return.

There's a whole class of engineers were completely invisible to most companies, even if they are in the same "local market" [0][1] (Some use the term "dark matter devs" but I know it has another meaning [2]). These guys tend to fly under the radar quite a bit. If you are in a tier 2 market or company, your chances of attracting one are close to nil. Because they are extremely valuable, they don't interview a lot and tend to hop between companies where they know people (or get fast tracked internally).

FAANG companies have internship pipelines, with bonus for returning interns. These guys are off the market years before they even graduate.

[0] https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala...

[1] http://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/

[2] https://www.hanselman.com/blog/dark-matter-developers-the-un...