I'm staff and I don't consider Manager a vertical step at all. It's a horizontal. Completely different type of job and I really doubt they make much more if more at all money than me. I would never go manager.
I'm a manager now and it was a lateral move from development, no salary increase. So yeah, sometimes managers earn around the same as the top people they manage.
Heck, I wouldn't mind earning less than some of the most brilliant ones. In fact I think I do earn less than someone that reports to me.
At meta and google they certainly don’t make more, the L6 manager and engineer bands are the same. Same for l7. At director level the bands are so wide it may not be the same between ic and managers even if it is in theory.
