I started my career as a regular old software dev but realized that at most companies that aren't specifically tech companies, IT is simply treated as highly skilled janitorial staff. At the time there wasn't as robust of a tech industry where I wanted to live a there is now, so I left to become an industry analyst, then moved into management roles.

It turns out lots of fields benefit from having tech people join them. For example, a surprising number of technical research/analyst jobs are filled by absolute non-tech people (those fields seem to grab liberal arts majors at incredibly high rates), but they need people who can understand technology at very deep levels. So I made a name for myself by applying technical knowledge in those domains (not by doing tech work, but by knowing how tech worked).

In management and business roles it's very much the same. Most managers tend to enter management by either growing vertically into more and more senior positions within their domain, then suddenly need to learn all the other skills needed to manage effectively or they go to some kind of management school or business school then head directly into management without learning how any of the workforce actually operates.

Very few are cross disciplinarians who understand tech and soft skills and management at any kind of functional level. I find that tech is a part of the portfolio of what I manage, but I've made a name for myself by being an effective bridge between corporate operations and technology and the technologists appreciate (I think) not being treated like maintenance staff and being able to have a reasonable conversation with somebody about what they do.

I think startups are very interesting in the sense that they really combine all the skills in one area and I bounce back and forth to startups as my career path today. I sometimes regret not staying in pure IT, but I also don't regret avoiding many of the very negative (to me at least) aspects of that life.