Exactly this: highly paid engineers are usually PHDs or otherwise researchers focusing on difficult problems. Their output can't be measures in ~~lines of code~~ commits on github. Nevermind time spent mentoring younger engineers, reviewing pull requests, advising management, etc. Ask me how I know.
That said ... at my previous job for a while near the end they were paying me to do very little indeed. I was not happy. Eventually the company ran into trouble, laid a bunch of people off (including me) and now I'm a lot busier at my new job... also happier.
The group was private and they created fake profiles ... did I miss something?