In Australia, data jobs have a high floor but a low-ish ceiling at most places. Salaries start at around A$100K if you know how to interview, but 30 years of diligent practice only nets you around A$200K, and this would be considered an extreme success.

If you're already good, just have coffee with executives/leads at places that take engineering seriously and you'll earn well, but there's no need to enter data hell as an employee at the typical company.

I'm also based in Melbourne. I would add that all the above is true of maybe 95% of companies, but there are a few exceptions: big US-based tech companies. There are roles for devs that pay AU$250-$550K/year, including the data engineers. Unfortunately, there appears to be zero correlation with expertise and we have the exact same pain zone experience that I had when I was earning a third of this salary at an AU-headquartered company.