you are (we all are?) confusing promotion as tournament with promotion as payment for services and promotion for span of control An engineer who stays an engin

you are (we all are?) confusing promotion as tournament with promotion as payment for services and promotion for span of control An engineer who stays an engineer will want to increase in skills and experience and be recognised as such through increased pay An engineer who wants to get the top jobs in management will want promotion because there are scarcer fewer positions as you go up the ladder - they are deferring their pay for a hope of massive tournament winning payouts.They would be well advised to avoid having direct responsibility for greater control (ie approving the change is ok, changing the feature flag yourself bad) An engineer who wants to stop being an engineer and mentor others (and fight the idiosyncrasies of the organisation) will want promotion with the added responsibility If your pay and promotion strategy is not aligned with these then problems will result