Yeah I would never want to be a manager. My career is writing code/building software. I like doing that. Pay me according to my ability to ship good code and don't ever make me manage people please.

The thing is that you are almost never compensated on your ability to ship good code, you're compensated on your ability to create business value. More business value usually means owning and leading more scope, not better/more code.

> The thing is that you are almost never compensated on your ability to ship good code, you're compensated on your ability to create business value.

If I can be allowed to split hairs a little, ackshually you're compensated based on your level/title which sometimes, but not always (maybe not even often) is proportional to your ability to create business value. Companies like to say that they pay based on business value because it sounds good. But they don't have really great ways to measure that, especially if you're not in sales.

You are compensated based on how much the alternative costs.

The level/title is merely a tool that attempts to frame someone relative to the alternatives to make that determination easier.

Sure but I can accomplish that by being a technical lead - planning architecture, reviewing code, mentoring junior devs, building libraries etc.

All of which means shipping less code and managing people in some capacity.

Ohh you mean going from a senior IC into entry level management? Because that's exactly what tech lead is at most companies.

I'm not the person you responded to, but I realize this, and I realize that my career ambitions put a definite ceiling on my salary.

Which is fine! I'd rather have my current salary and not have to manage people. I wouldn't want a manager's job for twice my salary. It would make me unhappy, and a spare salary wouldn't make it up to me.

> owning and leading more scope

And software is one of those things where an IC or small team lead can end up owning and being responsible for a huge amount of scope/impact.

just curious: if you take a junior engineer under your wing, teach them how to build a system, and watch them put code into production

is that not just another version of "shipping code"?

sure it's one degree removed from your physical fingers on the actual keyboard, but that junior only got to ship because of your mentorship/management

Absolutely. When I say I don't want to be in a management role, I mean I don't want to be in the role that most tech companies seem to call "management", which is usually someone mostly completely divorced from actual technical decisions.

Being a force multiplier by being technical leadership to other devs is fine by me. I just don't want to spend all day in an office managing upwards.

My point was that most corporations remove the option from high level individual contributors. The higher you go, the more the option is removed. I was directly told that I am more than qualified from a technical perspective to be a Director, but not qualified from an management perspective.

Teaching people management skills is probably a whole heck of a lot easier than teaching them technical skills, but companies don't see it that way. Companies will pay top dollar for a fresh Harvard MBA, and put them in-charge of a large technology thing they know little about, but reject the idea of a IC8 moving into that role.

Why wouldn't they allow an IC8 to move into a lower-level management position? It sounds like the option isn't removed, you just have to move downwards on the parallel track, to learn those things.

Imagine it the other way around; I would not expect the head of HR at my employer to move directly into a Staff Engineering position if they expressed interest in moving towards a technical role.

Why on earth would you expect that to be true?

I share your bias, but if I'm being intellectually honest with myself, this is an unjustified bias.

What informed your conjecture?