> Once you reach a certain level of seniority/experience you are just way more valuable in the force-multiplying role of "leader" than anything you can do with your hands on the keyboard.

This is the key statement. People don't like to hear this, but the reality is that it becomes incredibly difficult to move the needle to a sufficient degree as a high level IC. There are people who can pull this off, but the number of people who believe they can are orders of magnitude different than those who actually can.

For almost all people, all paths to be worth the lofty title involve being able to have an indirect influence on a larger sphere of influence as their hands on keyboard results only go so far. And however one wants to slice it, these paths start to sound like the types of things that people say they don't want to do when they decry "management". Influencing people, politics, mentorship, building trust & alignment, etc.

Leadership roles provide a clear path forward for this, but while there are other ways they tend to still get poopoo'd by the "I just want to code!" crowd.

Mind you, there's nothing wrong with "I just want to code!", I'm currently in such a phase myself. One just needs to be realistic about what that means for their progression.

You seem to be conflating IC with coding. I spend so little time on the keyboard that I couldn't even learn a new keyboard layout without extra typing practice. The most value I provide is in guiding the shape of emerging projects, as well as technical alignment with other projects and long-term directions in parts of the platform. None of that is 'coding'. If my hands are on the keyboard, it's for technical communication. Having people report to me isn't going to make be better at providing this kind of input.

Yes. This is the main thrust of my point.

If you spend enough time in threads on this topic here, you'll see people popping up complaining that there's no IC path forward without taking time away from coding and requiring building good soft skills.

What I was getting at is that with few exceptions, no such path exists.

You're 100% right that one doesn't need to go into leadership roles, and definitely not management roles, to get there. But one's hands on keyboard contributions will top out at some point and the only way to move the needle further is to do something else on top of that.

I personally separate the concepts of leadership and people management. So to me, most paths forward start to enter the sphere of "leadership" one way or another. But this is just nomenclature, YMMV.

We might be in agreement but certain phrases like "I just want to code" detract from it. Technical leadership doesn't need to manage people, but soft skills are still valuable. This can be done in an IC role.

> What I was getting at is that with few exceptions, no such path exists.

What I believe the post to be about is what such an exception could look like as a model for other orgs.

I'm more talking about personal growth, not hiring someone fresh. As an IC, it becomes hard for people to move the needle further and further *unless* they start taking on more interpersonal responsibilities.

Even for hiring in the circumstances you describe, I don't think you're wrong per se. But there aren't many situations or people where I'd prefer someone who just wants to sit in a corner and code vs someone who can do all the other stuff at a high level too.

I can see that. You get to flex a particular skillset which isn't rewarded elsewhere, so for you, it's a positive. You could think of the "IC track" terminating in this kind of role, which is pretty cool. I do think some people may not realize by choosing this path they are locking themselves in to industries where this role is needed or rewarded. It's not quite as generalizable or broadly recognized as "management". So steer clear if you think you may not want this for the long term.