I never get why companies are so fixated on salaries being tied to titles. People just do different jobs and you shouldn't need technical or people leadership to get paid more.
If someone is really effective at their job they don't need to be called (or do the work of) a principal engineer. Just pay the 10x engineer 10x.
More frustratingly, for example quasi-governmental places, the total comp raise any individual can receive is a hard limit written in their rules. Even if you skipped 5 levels you couldn't even get that raise. That's why new employees are hired at a higher rate than existing employees. The only solution is to quit for a time and then come back to the org. Though maybe once every 5 years they'll do a realignment of pay bands.
That's on a company's performance reviews... and so how do you measure salary increases, bonuses, anything? There shouldn't be a different standard to it.
The only difference is the engineer shouldn't be forced into a different field to get paid more.
> What’s a 10x engineer
It's just an expression I'd say. Can be 2x, 5x, whatever. Most of the time a good engineer is forced into management of some sort (technical or people) before the 2x mark (salary wise).