Perhaps engineers' actual value is far in excess of their salaries? It seems like if it wasn't, there'd be no reason to collude. Does anyone collude to prevent bakers from switching bakeries?
In an environment like that where money is not scarce but engineering skills are, how can the salaries not climb and how can small companies even DREAM of competing? Or course the big players don't want to get into a bidding war because they know both sides can afford to pay a lot more.
One of my recent jobs was VP of Tech for a small startup. They offered me what they could afford plus equity. The product they were working on was not going to be Facebook size. I think realistically they could have had a 100 million dollar buyout in 5ish years if everything went well. OR they could have gone broke. They gave me 1% of the company in my package which is huge, but that means I'm gambling on the success of this startup for a hopeful payout of 1 million dollars in 5 or so years. At the same time this was happening a few of my friends took jobs at Apple and guess what? They were offered packages that basically meant they would make as much as I did in 5 years if I were to get the million. So, where was my upside? I'm taking on all this risk just to break even with what I could make working at Apple best case.
The job market is crazy right now and it stands to get a lot crazier.
From what I do know about food creation, there is a huge surplus of candidates and people with jobs are happy to not be washing dishes. (My sister was considering a $60K degree in baking and that was the summary that graduates gave her.)
So the GP comment seems to be making a valid point. If you have some insight into the "local artisan bakery" world, share it with us instead of providing an slightly insulting, information free, apparently offended comment.