That's exactly how this works. A career can move horizontally or vertically. What most people forget is that "moving up the ladder" isn't a promotion: it's a f

That's exactly how this works. A career can move horizontally or vertically. What most people forget is that "moving up the ladder" isn't a promotion: it's a fundamental career change that requires vastly different skills. Being a fine engineer or technician doesn't make you fit for a leadership position where people skills make all the difference. And once you're in such a role, your operational experience will go stale after a while since you can't spend vast amounts of time deep diving in concrete technical problems. Your job is to manage the overall picture and delegate. Here's a nice blogpost from Charity Majors (Honeycomb) about this exact conundrum: https://charity.wtf/2019/01/04/engineering-management-the-pendulum-or-the-ladder/ https://charity.wtf/2019/01/04/engineering-management-the-pe... The crux to this is that it's actually fine to not climb the ladder. Like you said, you can perfectly hone your skills over years, establish a name for yourself and become a specialist who gets paid more then their boss Doing that still requires a due acumen to manage your own career as if it were a personal business. Which means scouting for opportunities that help you earn more while allowing you to work on new challenging projects that help you expand your technical experience. Hence why hopping jobs isn't necessarily a bad thing for your career. Of course, that's not what employers want or need. That's why they play the loyalty or career card. And why this myth "climbing the ladder is a good thing" persists. Let's not forget, most people stick to their jobs not because they are particularly fond of their jobs, but because of household debt (children, car, house, student loans,...) or because there simply aren't attractive alternatives close by and moving / migrating is too expensive (emotionally, culturally, socially,...). Finally, office politics and workplace culture are an aggregate and a compound sum, not just of organizational policies, but also of what employees bring to the table, where they are individually in their lives, what they need now and in the future, and which cost opportunity trade offs they are willing / choosing to make.