Which in engineering, is ridiculous.

We've all met many brilliant engineers with the social skills of a lettuce. The idea they cannot get a raise in salary unless promoted to management is just daft.

It appears the problem is many managers regard underlings getting paid more than them as unhealthy; despite the fact the job descriptions are vastly different.

> many managers regard underlings getting paid more than them as unhealthy

Yeah, I never understood this. As a manager I've always strived to earn less than those I help do their job (meaning pushing their salary up whenever I could), they're doing all the heavy lifting and I'm just along for the ride trying to unblock them and coordinate stuff. Not sure why there are managers who think they should earn more than the people doing the grunt-work, but then again, the world is filled with people who think they're more important than they are.

If that is true then hats off. You are a very rare breed.

Though one should consider that eventually (additional) legal responsibilities come into play, that need to be worth something as well.

Unfortunately, management can remain irrational longer than your income can keep up with the rising cost of living

Many executives consider managing peoples is harder than managing machines, and that having many people working together have a better value than a single person.

As such, many want a raise, but no-one want to manage peoples and have responsibilities that involve human factor (state otherwise, it is easier to be sure about the result of your own work than the work of your whole team). That’s the reason why it is easier to ask for a raise as a manager than a single coder.

Yea, in the company I work in (entire country it seems tbh) - it's exceedingly rare for contributers to get a raise over a certain point. If I want to increase my income I kinda have to go into management.

I'm sure there are outliers, but this seems to be the norm.