Companies know we want it, and have gotten better at talking the talk (e.g. technical career tracks.) But look into how that actually works. For most people it'

Companies know we want it, and have gotten better at talking the talk (e.g. technical career tracks.) But look into how that actually works. For most people it's much harder, if it happens at all. I speak as a guy at the end of the technical track, on my second consecutive job of "look, you make as much as we'll pay just-a-programmer, even an architect, here." Many managers are now convinced things are better. I never talk to anybody high-up on that track who thinks so. Of course, most companies don't have anybody high up on a technical career ladder, but are convinced it's going to be fixed any year here. Fundamentally, as long as it's even 20% easier to get promoted as a manager, people are going to intentionally pick that track. In practice, it's usually 2x-5x easier to get promoted as a manager. I don't think that's fixable. At some point, executives have to decide who to promote. Executives, like the rest of us, prefer people who have skills like theirs - I bias in favor of programming skills for the same reason. But executive bias toward their own skills mean people managers get promoted. I've never worked at Google. But I know a lot of Googlers. I don't think I'm wrong. Also, there's another comment from a Googler disagreeing with you in response to this very comment. It's not a Google-specific problem. But it's a big one.