Most companies are like this. Even my n=1 experience at BigTech is that it is well known that you get more coming in at a certain level than you do when you get promoted to that level and it’s best to “boomerang”.

On an unrelated note: it’s also easier to get “promoted” to the next level by changing jobs and then coming back than it is to go through the internal promo process at the same BigTech company.