[acntr_employee]

> But even though you might get a quote-unquote promotion and be paid more, the technical specialists still might be excluded from high-level conversations. [...]

I hear you. Not only that. In our case - even if by regulation expert track and managerial track should be seen and compensated the same I know that lots of managers not only are compensated in the upper quartiles of the distribution, while experts overwhelmingly are compensated in the lower rungs. No managers also are fast tracked more easily for promotions making the factual gap even wider.

I know of executives that ensure, that experts are always one level below respective managers, even if they should be on the same hierarchical level.