[t-]

What you describe reminds me of the peer review system in place at a previous company I worked at. The review period was every 6 months. The way it worked was that as an individual you'd rank (and comment on) everyone you had worked with the previous 6 months based on your perception of how much value they added to the company over those previous 6 months. It could be based on some project they delivered, or them simply always answering your questions about something you needed to know to move your own projects forward, or them participating thoughtfully in company wide discussions. Once everyone had submitted their rankings, an algo would figure out everyone's final rank. The various pay level cutoffs would then be decided by eng management.

It so happens that at that company everyone's title was simply 'Software Engineer'. There was no ego bs so it was a great place to work. I think how helpful you were to others being part of the review is another reason for that. There was a way to see some people's 'rank' by looking at the org chart if you really wanted to. In general swe and senior swe would be under an eng manager, if someone was directly under a director that told you something, and if someone was directly under a vp that also told you something.