That's been my role as a senior staff scientist. And at first glance, you'd wonder, well who in their right mind would want that? But it actually has its merits.
With authority comes a chain of authority. The manager is just projecting the authority of the manager above them, and so forth. That can translate into being a manager without being a leader or an authority. Also, if you rise to the expectation of being a leader, you might have a chance to actually get good at it, something that many good administrators never experience.
I've also been a manager. It was dull, and I knew that I would never be competitive at it, so I went back to the technical track.
The expectation is to be a leader without being a manager.
In many disciplines, to earn higher salaries you will have to produce/influence output at a level that might not be possible by one person. The way to get that kind of output is to mentor junior engineers.