The problem has been fairly extreme at all of the companies I've worked at. I would even say that, if you exclude the new grads, there's actually an inverse re

The problem has been fairly extreme at all of the companies I've worked at. I would even say that, if you exclude the new grads, there's actually an inverse relationship between someone's level and how much I would want to work with them. I expect the problem is most severe at mid-sized companies that don't have highly-technical business problems to solve. I think the root cause looks something like this: - A long chain of relatively non-technical managers exists in the engineering org. - Promotions, especially to staff, become very political, ie the decision-makers likely haven't worked directly with the candidates for promotions. - The criteria for promotion to staff effectively becomes whether they contribute to highly-visible, high-level engineering efforts - If the domain doesn't require them, these highly-visible efforts are likely either lateral shifts or actively unhelpful. The company probably doesn't need to be reinventing the wheel with some staff IC's pet project, especially if the mid-level IC's know what they're doing and can keep the lights on. - The best engineers eventually leave for greener pastures. Of the engineers that stick around, the ones most likely to get promoted are the ones who are the most enthusiastic about designing (or just talking about) systems that no one wants or needs