From the company's perspective it rarely makes sense to pay an regular employee more than the amount that the company makes per employee.

Yes, there are variations and management can go a bit on the higher side of that number - though also note that that is revenue and doesn't take into account operational costs, taxes, and the like.

In many cases, the company just can't reasonably pay what the "market" suggests the role should get. In these cases, it is a question of trying to point out that the value that the role brings is much more than what they're paying and that the company, upon recognizing that, should offer more.

The other alternative for the company is that they aren't losing money compared to the current set of accounting books. They may be leaving money on the table that they could get from expanding, but that's a risk.

Speaking of risk, there are a lot of risky candidates out there. It is far too easy to hire a person who fails to perform at the expected level or to train the person up for a few months in the tech stack and domain only for them to leave for a different company.

As it is, an unfilled role that has what is perceived as low compensation, to the company, is the less risky than a role filled with someone who is paid more but may not be performing - or even if they are performing aren't bringing the value to the organization compared to the revenue that is needed to justify that role.

I’m surprised such a company isn’t going out of business. That’s a very low amount to make per-head for software engineers. Do they make up for it in volume?

Not a software dev or inherently tech-base business. Vast majority of employees are not in a tech related positions.

I'm in Higher Ed analytics, embedded at a high level in an operational division at a university. So, maximizing revenue isn't a primary goal. It's certainly a secondary concern, some amount of "profit" is necessary to plow back into resources for students & researchers and capex, but if we're making a ton of profit it would kind of mean we're charging students more than we need to and putting a higher debt burden on them. Some schools, unfortunately, take that path but not where I work. We are honestly very focused on doing what's best for the student, even at the cost of leaving some easy money on the table.

Minimizing student debt burden is a primary target metric for the university. Of course it's much more complicated than that though, countless variables and interlocking & sometimes competing goals & requirements.

And while Higher Ed isn't perfect and could use some disruption, quality instruction doesn't have much economy of scale. Sure, a very self-motivated person can plow through self-paced college courses without a lot of handholding or overhead costs to get them through, but that's not the majority of students. For most students the ability to get quality help along the way is inversely proportional to class size and directly proportional to support resources. So, high labor costs. Though again, some amount of disruption could probably improve things. As would the realization that not everyone needs to go to a traditional 4-year college, that for many people learning a skilled trade is both a faster path to financial self-sufficiency and better suited to their interests. But that's all a bit off topic so I'll end it there.