I never said or implied to act adversarial toward management. I have respected my last 5 managers and still meet them for lunch when I get the chance. I became friends with two of my former managers
after leaving the company.
Let’s talk about the “glass ceiling”. I’ll start off with the corp dev side of the world where most people work.
I know a few guys who are in their late 40s (as am I) who eschewed management and have been moving around between various corp dev jobs for 20 years and have kept their skills up. They have never made more than the mid $100s. They have wives that are working. Their wives are making between $70K and mid to high 100s. They live in a major city in the south. Do you know how far that can go making $250K+ in most cities? You are already well within the top decile of households[1].
Now let’s look on the BigTech side. A returning intern I mentored last year, got a return offer making $150K (consulting department). They can live anywhere in the US. They are already earning more than 92% of individuals in the US.
On a more personal note, I was a senior corp dev bopping around between unknown companies like the first set of developers until 2020. I fell into a role into the cloud consulting department in BigTech. I still work remotely making about what an SDE2 makes. Guess how much I’m stressing about becoming even a “senior consultant”?
Those friends in corp dev could easily get a job as at least an SA working where I work. But they weren’t interested. Once you have “enough” making more money and promotions isn’t that important.
As the 74 implies, I was also around during the bubble. It wasn’t that bad working in regular old corp dev where you were just another employee at a profitable company. Even then I was making $70K in 2000 - twice the individual income at the time.
[1] https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/