I hate to break it to you, but this also happens in the US - especially at huge companies.

The next step of my career progression at my current company is deciding whether I want to go into the continuing tech route as an architect or staff software engineer or if I want to go into the managerial / people leader route.

The later is quite more lucrative, but I would have to stop programming.

Even just the existence of a staff software engineer role is something. I don't think this company has that, but I think that would be exactly what I wanted to do. Especially at this particular department.