Originally Posted by Unregistered

Not really. Even if you are not high scholar just average can still get promote to AD or SAD level which actually pays much better in total package compared to a typical mid career engineer or manager in private sector.

I hear a lot of my friends in CS also keep complaining about how they cant be Directors or Perm Secs because they are not scholars, but reality is if they were just average in private sector, pay would have been much lower and unstable compare to what they have now.