The senior vice president of engineering raked in $10.3 million last year, just behind Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo’s $11.5 million, according to Twitter’s IPO documents. That is more than the paychecks of executives such as Chief Technology Officer Adam Messinger, Chief Financial Officer Mike Gupta and Chief Operating Officer Ali Rowghani.

Welcome to Silicon Valley, where a shortage of top engineering talent amid an explosion of venture capital-backed start-ups is inflating paychecks.

There are several ways of reading this. Could be a clear sign of a big tech bubble. Or a more interesting take: that software engineering – considered by most regular companies as a commodity – is being valued on the same level as business and management. $10 million is a lot of money either way, but I think the reaction from people more stems from whom is getting paid that sum. Well paid executives in management is hardly news.

Edit: I know that an SVP of Engineering is management too, but the point here was how the area as a whole was valued.

Twitter pays engineer $10 million as Silicon Valley tussles for talent