Specialization is probably the most common way to get significantly higher compensation as a grunt. Make yourself an expert in some hot area of technology. Higher demand and lower supply = higher compensation.

Just imagine being the guy trying to hire a kernel developer vs hiring a PHP developer familiar with Wordpress. You're going to have to pay more, a lot more.

Working at Facebook is what determines compensation at Facebook. Facebook is forced to pay its employees a high salary because they work at Facebook. If they did not, other companies would simply hire all their new employees away within a year of their start date. It doesn't have a whole lot to do with the individual.