There's nothing shallow about it. Companies don't make "levelling up" worthwhile unless you have your ego invested in your title in an unhealthy way. If you hang out at senior+/staff level you can just plug away until retirement.

Wait a minute… are you telling me the company isn’t just paying me to code because they believe in sponsoring the creation of technological beauty?

In capitalism, that's how it's designed, yes. Everything else is "religion" to distract from this fact.