"Don’t manage only to advance your career. Many tech companies have parallel career paths to seniority for both technical and managerial high-performers."
Is this really true?
Many engineers do become managers only to advance their careers.
The "parallel" technical career path never seems to deliver equal amounts of power, or even money, as compared to managers on the same level.
Even when a rough parity exists on paper, for every "principal Engineer" or whatever, there are a couple of dozen Vice Presidents of Blah. Oddswise, to make the same amount of money, and more importantly, to get more lucrative job offers in the future, in most companies it pays to transition to management than stay technical. (which is fine, it is just the way the world works, just pointing out that the article may need some fixing)
Is this really true?
Many engineers do become managers only to advance their careers.
The "parallel" technical career path never seems to deliver equal amounts of power, or even money, as compared to managers on the same level.
Even when a rough parity exists on paper, for every "principal Engineer" or whatever, there are a couple of dozen Vice Presidents of Blah. Oddswise, to make the same amount of money, and more importantly, to get more lucrative job offers in the future, in most companies it pays to transition to management than stay technical. (which is fine, it is just the way the world works, just pointing out that the article may need some fixing)