> This leads to a ton of actual problems too: You get a person really really good at coding / execution but shit in big picture thinking / broad system design choices / cross team work etc. spend a bunch of time in a level. Now you have to either promote him into a spot where s/he will fail OR lose em to attrition. Either choice tends to break.

I hate this issue, and see it occur in so many companies. Why are we so opposed to simply paying more/increasing benefits of people at the same level? Why can't an "regular" Engineer just get a large raise for being an amazing Engineer, because that's what you need! Instead, they need to be come a "Senior" Engineer who also has some kind of other management-type job that they suck at.