Salaries, A6 and other unknowns

On the topic of public service, only this should be said: for example, I work in a federal agency (land office) with 300 employees, of whom 20 are civil servants, and by no means all in A12 +

The middle service (skilled workers, administrative employees) is mainly in E6 and E7 with few exceptions in E9a, the upper intermediate service is usually E10 or E11 (FH engineers/Bachelor graduates).
The higher service (university degree/master) only includes the department heads, exactly 5 of them. (E13 and higher usually civil servants)
Since every agency has a pyramid structure and the site oeffentlicher-dienst.Info/tvoed/ has already been mentioned here, everyone can gladly add 1 and 1 and come independently to the conclusion of how many employees and civil servants there are in the public service with a salary of 2500 net at tax class 1.

Regarding step entries, it should be said that employees always start at level 1, promotion to level 2 after one year, to level 3 after two years, to level 4 after three years of professional experience. Whereas levels 4 and 5, as well as level 6, can be denied if the work performance is not adequate.

Employees are paid according to their actual activity, i.e. theoretically a skilled worker can also become a department head (E15) and is paid accordingly.
Civil servants are paid according to qualification and attendance, i.e. University of Applied Sciences/Bachelor in non-technical administrative service A9 to A13, university degree and master A13 to A15.

To briefly stay with Dirk, a Dipl.Verm.Ing (FH) is classified as E10 in the cadastral office, the department head E13 (university degree).
If you are lucky and work in an agency with construction activities such as Straßen NRW, state construction enterprise or similar, you can get into E12 if you carry out demanding engineering surveys (structural monitoring, zero measurements, settlement measurement, etc.).
There are currently many experienced engineers (not only in surveying) who have moved one level up due to the transfer regulations (BAT to TVöD) and are therefore comparatively highly classified. New hires after 2005 with the introduction of TVöD, TV-L only reach these classifications with the goodwill of the office management, which can be interpreted however one wants.

Civil servant teachers are outliers in the tariff structure....

That was a small, very approximate excursus into the tariff structure of the public service.

It turned out to be a bit more

nobody forces anyone to work in the public service. There are advantages and disadvantages. An advantage is job security

Since every authority has a pyramid structure

That is not correct. There are indeed specialized authorities in which the higher service (as well as the elevated service) are in the majority. Also, for civil servants in the higher service, it does not end at A15. And TB can be paid AT.