How does that effect compensation? Do people plateau in compensation because of the lack of formal levels, or is compensation not tied so tightly to your title/# of reports/etc.
EDIT: Oh, how about I answer the question? Compensation is highly discretionary, so it varies pretty widely. But the real cheese is in equity grants, and those are heavily weighted towards management. A common complaint is that there's no realistic path up out of being an "individual contributor".