a lifetime ago back at Microsoft, Peter Spiro described these folks job expectation as "walk on water". if you wanted to exceed expectations, you had to "leave no wake"...

The very best engineer I've ever worked with at any company (Anna B.) just got promoted to Distinguished last year. She accomplished one or two industry-leading things before that :-)

Leading the industry clearly isn't good enough. They are expected to regularly redefine the industry.

Happiness is not enough! I demand constant euphoria!

Their managers earning as much or more don't lol

haha their managers' job is just redefining expectations of what is required.

A L9 manager has a very different job. That's a VP and they've probably got 500 people under them. Very high level ICs are also somewhat often directly managed by lower level managers (who are also paid much less). It isn't terribly uncommon to see an L8 managed by a L7.

Managing 500 people is a far lower responsibility than "redefine the entire industry". The entire industry is probably a hundred thousand workers and dozens of companies making hundreds of billions of dollars and you have to completely change the game for all of them. Why should someone who only manages a mere 500 people get more than one thousandth of the compensation? They probably only have a dozen direct reports anyway.

That's just a reflection of the fact that it's much easier to have a big impact if you direct an entire org to make it happen rather than trying to be a hero and doing it all individually.

We already know that part. They take credit for other people's work and they will fire you if you don't earn them a big payday.

> Since demotion doesn't exist for various reasons

maybe not in faangs, but I've seen CTOs and directors downshift to ICs in multiple startups and public tech companies. Honestly kicking them out instead sounds like a huge waste, if the person can make solid contributions in a different, maybe less intense, role, why not let them?

At Google it is actually common to have directors or VPs who don't have reports for a while, but we are talking about people who are ICs already. For each management position there is an equivalent IC position at Google with similar pay. I believe L9 would be a senior director.

From what I've seen these senior people with no reports at the moment (or those with org sizes too small) were hardest hit in the layoffs, simply because of the misfortune of bad timing.

It sounds like you're describing people getting a different job at a different company? That's not the same thing at all.

When I joined Google I was "demoting" myself from TL/M equivalent to mere L4 SWE. The much higher pay didn't make it feel like a demotion though.

nope, switching to a lower level at the same company

Well my origin comment was saying that it doesn't happen at Google. I can't speak for other employers.

Ah, clueless tech companies and the infinite growth myth, name one more popular duo.