Originally I was really looking to find holes in what you said but I do think it's basically the same result but from a different path. Meritocracy is never to

Originally I was really looking to find holes in what you said but I do think it's basically the same result but from a different path. Meritocracy is never totally there, but it is more practiced in the engineering roles. For management, it's who you know. And who you have beers with at the end of the day. In a large e-commerce company at which I once worked I was both a manager and an IC. My family grew from 1 kid to 3 during my three plus years there. So I never could stay late to have those beers with the other managers. My career there suffered (in addition to all the other awful stuff). When you looked around, teams were almost always composed of people that looked the same way. That company was 60% East Asian heritage, either India or largely Chinese immigrants. The teams were often grouped along ethnic lines. It makes sense, if English isn't your first language, you would prefer to work with people who spoke your first language. But, that's the point. We hire people that look like us. And management isn't a meritocracy, so you want to be in the office to make sure people see your face and get to know you. They will more likely listen to you, consider your opinions, etc. if you are meeting face to face. It is vital for managers to keep their jobs. The exciting thing is perhaps this will be a Renaissance for a better form of manager. But, of course, the Renaissance also had Machiavelli, and there will be lots of people who will successfully subvert this new reality.