How can a lone engineer scale their impact after senior? I literally think the career ladder flatlines there because business value flatlines there too. It be nice if companies had work above it but I think it's hard.
My point is not about pay. It's that I can only do so much, and the only way I can acheive more is by having a pyramid of engineers underneath me doing the coding.
Then you need to be a manager. Organizations where there is a tech lead who does people management, or where it's "flat" (i.e. no managers) tend to develop informal, unspoken, or hidden political structures that fill the role.
Then 10% pay raise may suddenly evolve into 100% at way cooler place