Generally speaking, there are hard, concrete pay bands associated with roles. As you progress through the pay bands there's less room for raises. There isn't an idea of "an exception" to this rule. There aren't special employees in the rank and file.

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.

What’s a 10x engineer and how do you measure that?

> and how do you measure that?

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).