> Bar for rising in the IC ladder is astronomically higher than climbing in a mgmt ladder
This is the root of all evil. Just getting from Sr -> Staff Engineer is not only a product of skill and experience, but also what problem you are working on, how many ICs exist on the team/org at your level, what opportunities exist in your org and much more. When a staff engineer leaves a company, the probability of a senior engineer getting promoted is the same as an external hire getting the spot. When a senior manager leaves, one of the other managers gets a promotion almost every time. In management you can just hire enough people under you to automatically climb the corporate ladder. Management often rewards inefficiency whereas as an IC you get punished for it.
This is the root of all evil. Just getting from Sr -> Staff Engineer is not only a product of skill and experience, but also what problem you are working on, how many ICs exist on the team/org at your level, what opportunities exist in your org and much more. When a staff engineer leaves a company, the probability of a senior engineer getting promoted is the same as an external hire getting the spot. When a senior manager leaves, one of the other managers gets a promotion almost every time. In management you can just hire enough people under you to automatically climb the corporate ladder. Management often rewards inefficiency whereas as an IC you get punished for it.