I have recently been offered a position for a "postdoc" (fixed term level A position) in Australia.
In the British/Australian (and European) academic systems, career progression is very different from the United States, as outlined in this answer.
In my field (a subset of engineering) we have an authorship order for publications based on contribution level, with the last author being the PI/Advisor of the lab (receiving a lot of credit in the process).
In the British/Australian systems, there is an expectation to informally supervise a few students for post docs. I have been informed that I will be expected to help supervise or actually supervise students and perhaps obtain my own funding as well. In the US most post docs in my field exclusively focus on research, and nearly always get first author.
Additionally, if I'm moved to a B and/or C level academic (sort of like assistant and associate professor respectively here in the US) this supervision and funding responsibility will increase. This part is similar to the United States for a tenure track associate professor.
The difference between the US and the UK/AUS systems is that at the B academic level, I still would not be a professor, and I would have a PI above me. This brings up the authorship question...
Given the different structure between the two systems, does the UK/AUS system dilute the competitiveness and career advancement of junior academics in the UK/AUS system, especially if they intend to migrate back to the US academic system?
The reason that I ask is because in the US, once you are an assistant professor, you will get last author on any papers produced by your lab, but in the UK/AUS system, there may be a professor in charge of junior academics (assistant and associate professor equivalents) who would instead receive last author. This then dilutes the rating of the junior academics among their peers, because they become a middle author instead of the last author.
If this isn't the actual practice, please correct me.