> When I was at ShermansTravel.com we had a very competent project manager who oversaw the tech team. She did a fantastic job of estimating tickets, prioritizing tickets, and keeping engineers focused on the right tickets. But she was paid less than any of the software engineers. And I think that is the right model for most companies, including Bayer. The default assumption, everywhere, is that managers need to be paid more than the people they manage, but why is that?

I suspect you didn't actually report into this Project Manager in the org chart, did you? Did she make hiring/firing decisions for the engineering team? Was she in charge of budgeting for the engineering team, including raises and bonuses? Did she approve vacation requests?

Just because she was attached to the engineering team and had Manager in her job title doesn't mean she was the manager of the team. To me, "Project Manager" is a separate role that is not actually higher than an IC engineer in the org chart

I wouldn't expect to make more money than the person I report into, especially because that person generally has authority over me and could probably terminate my job entirely if they wanted to