What the company hasn’t said is that it’s paying exorbitant salaries to programmers to turn that vision into a reality. Former Meta human resources employees say the company’s unusually high salaries for developers building virtual reality products is part of a larger trend in which the company is willing to outspend competitors to lure the best talent for a wide range of jobs. One smaller gaming company executive said he lost the opportunity to hire a senior developer last year because the candidate said Meta had offered $800,000 a year with the potential to earn more than $1 million if he or she got a high performance bonus