I'm an E-6 USMC SSgt. Do you outrank me? 
Nope--same paygrade, or at least I was.
Shitty thing about serving in Clintoon's Navy. I made ET1 in just under 6 years, and for the next 6, that's where I stayed. Took the CPO exam 3 times. Board Eligible every time. Problem was, in my NEC there were about 225-250 ET1's (3363--Submarine Reactor Operator-Supervisor) going up for CPO each year.
The numbers for CPO each year went from 22, to 12, to 8 the last year I took the exam. To make matters worse, at the time (and probably still the case) if you had less than 12 years in, you were considered "early select", and no more than 10 percent of the CPO's selected could be early, meaning I had about zip-point-shit chance of putting on khakis.
I didn't see things improving, I was newly married, and someone waved a check that was roughly triple what I was making at the time in my face.
Not a hard choice for me.