Comment by eweise

Oddly, I just went from a director level position to staff engineer at a new company, and am getting paid 50% more. I feel like I won the lotto. Management was stressful and full of nepotism. The only positives were being a bit upstream in the decision making process. I do think its good to for ICs to get out of their comfort zone and take on some management tasks though. Its important as you become a senior engineer, to not just contribute to the code but to also help mentor the team, sell a technical vision and take responsibility for delivering the product as a whole.