Lived this for two years at a large tech company. Manager said "you're clearly operating at senior" for four consecutive cycles. Kept getting deferred. Eventually left. Figured it out in hindsight.
Three things were happening simultaneously and I didn't understand any of them:
1. My manager was not influential in calibration. Calibration is not a democracy, it's a power contest. If your manager is junior, new to the team, or just not politically loud, their advocacy has limited weight. Other managers can object and kill a promo case without much friction. I had a perfectly good packet and a perfectly supportive manager who had basically no leverage in the room.
2. Headcount-gated promos. Many orgs (especially post-2022) have a hard ratio: X% of engineers can be at senior, Y% at staff. If that quota is full, no one gets promoted regardless of merit. This is almost never disclosed. You get "not quite yet" feedback that's actually "no room right now."
3. The bar was higher than what was communicated. My manager was calibrated to the old bar. The company had quietly raised it after a hiring spree where they'd promoted people fast. So I was aiming at a target that had moved.
How do you tell if this is you: ask your manager directly what happened in calibration. If they're vague, that's data. Ask to see the feedback from the panel, not just the summary. Ask whether there's a headcount constraint. Managers hate this question which means it's usually the right one.
If you've been deferred twice with good feedback and no concrete gap identified, start interviewing. Sometimes the only way to get the level you've earned is to get it externally.