The Evolution of Management: Transitioning Up the Ladder
Is being promoted from individual contributor to manager still a thing?<p>Certainly the mobility from engineer to manager is something that I haven&#x27;t witnessed &quot;in the wild&quot; ever, after 10 years in the business and having seen half a dozen organizations; neither with myself, nor with my peers.<p>What I predominantly see is a caste system where engineers are the lower caste and MBA-types are the higher caste, and members of the lower caste aren&#x27;t taken seriously when voicing suggestions and opinions regarding business direction and management and also certainly don&#x27;t stand a chance of being moved into any positions where they would meaningfully influence business direction on an ongoing basis.<p>There is an exception, though, which is that female engineers may still get promoted into management (...not going to speculate on reasons right now).<p>Also, what I&#x27;ve sometimes seen work is a lateral move followed by a vertical move, say from engineering to sales, and then from sales into management.