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This is, in my experience, generally not the case.
Setting aside all the implicit indirect contributions (support, development, coaching, personality management, etcetera), managers generally shape work by deciding what work is going to be done, how to mobilize resources, communicating the results outside the team's domain, and being accountable for it. Those are direct, tangible contributions.
- a management track
- an IC (individual contributor) track
There are different levels on the different tracks, and each is paid for that level. A super experienced IC will be paid more than a junior manager, and vice versa. So it doesn't have to be true that a manager earns more than an IC, and for example many ICs at Google are paid millions of $$, much much more than the average manager (or average IC, of course).
But when managers are paid more, why is that? Sometimes, the experience needed to be a manager is higher. For example, an engineering manager that wasn't previously an engineer may struggle to manage their team. As such, an engineering manager might have 10 years of engineering behind them before making the leap over to other track, and we don't just start them at the bottom given their relevant experience.
Another reason is that managers are multipliers. A good manager can take a team of good ICs and turn them into amazing ICs working together as a team. A bad manager might multiply the team by 0.5, or 0.1, but no-one hires a manager expecting them to suck, so you pay them as if their multiplier is 2x (and hopefully fire them if they suck).
Of course, managers and ICs are different roles in the employment market. ICs often don't like management (which is a challenging, and often very different job from ICing). So they different have supply/demand curves.
If the above doesn't apply to your workplace, then the obvious thing is true: they pay managers more because they value managers more. Whether that is the right thing to do is clearly in the eye of the beholder.
Cause handling people and their issues is about 5000 times harder than handling code. Your code doesn't get cancer, run away with a coworker, go bankrupt, have opinions, lie, steal, needs to be told how to use a restroom, needs protection when it's layoff season etc etc etc
That's not always true.
I work for a company where the CEO admitted to earning LESS than the top earner. The CEO is still worth more because of other assets, but the VP of Sales earns the most annual take-home in the company.
This seems economically rational. You want your sales people focused on selling.
Part of it is that good managers act as an umbrella for their reports and keep unnecessarily distracting or stressful issues from taking up their time. But that means the manager is dealing with that stress instead.
Part of it is that managers often have a broader scope of responsibility. Senior managers and higher often have multiple projects under their belt and are held responsible for their continued success.
Part of it is that the success state of a manager's work depends on the success of other employees, which makes it more difficult for them to control whether they do well by their own effort. A really good manager could be paired up with a really bad employee who eventually has to be fired; did that manager do a bad job since their report got fired, or did they do a good job identifying that they needed to be fired? It's situational, and that ambiguity increases the risk of being fairly rewarded. Higher risk demands higher compensation.
Part of it is that demand for good managers is high enough that the market prices their salaries higher. Anecdotally, I can say that a bad manager hire has a much worse impact than a bad IC hire, so the stakes are higher, which raises prices.
Cause handling people and their issues is about 5000 times harder than handling code. Your code doesn't get cancer, run away with a coworker, go bankrupt, have opinions, lie, steal, needs to be told how to use a restroom, needs protection when it's layoff season etc etc etc
If I can go a whole quarter without seeing some unspeakable mess in the bathroom of a fortune 50 company, that would be amazing. 7+ years in, so far no luck.
In good companies there are two career paths: - a management track - an IC (individual contributor) track There are different levels on the different tracks, and each is paid for that level. A super experienced IC will be paid more than a junior manager, and vice versa. So it doesn't have to be true that a manager earns more than an IC, and for example many ICs at Google are paid millions of $$, much much more than t…
In good companies there are two career paths: - a management track - an IC (individual contributor) track There are different levels on the different tracks, and each is paid for that level. A super experienced IC will be paid more than a junior manager, and vice versa. So it doesn't have to be true that a manager earns more than an IC, and for example many ICs at Google are paid millions of $$, much much more than t…
Question for clarification: Do those ICs making "a lot" report to managers that make more, less or equal (generally speaking of course)?