Auto companies notoriously pay their people poorly. They are losing many talented engineers as a result. I know quite a few in the industry here in Michigan. The engineers who remain at the autos, are blown away by the salaries their former colleagues are getting from SV companies.

I was mentoring a EE who wanted to up his game. He wanted to get into programming, and I pointed out that Python, C++, etc. are in demand at many companies right now. I asked him for his salary range, and for a 50+ year old engineer with 20 years of experience, it was pretty awful. Though, completely normal for the autos and their suppliers.