Completely agree. At this point I'm relatively convinced you always have to go "back to the market" to get a meaningful pay raise. Even if you switch to the product side or make 2-3 compensation incentives, you're likely not going to see that much of a cumulative pay bump - especially if you're not in the top 1% of engineers (which I certainly am not). Once you're in the 6-8yrs of experience range it gets a bit more drab unless you want to start your own gig - that is of course if making more money is in the cards.