>Maintaining existing ones or fixing bugs is a career dead end for software engineers and managers Strong disagree. This may be the case at certain "tech" comp

>Maintaining existing ones or fixing bugs is a career dead end for software engineers and managers Strong disagree. This may be the case at certain "tech" companies, but I grew my career into CTO through maintaining existing systems and fixing bugs (and through doing the things no one else wanted to do). Amongst my fellow members of the particular CTO club I'm in, I'd say about 1/4 to 1/3rd followed a similar path. There is a related way you can limit your career though, by becoming an expert on a non-critical system and limiting your focus solely to it. Many engineers take that path because it feels safe and offers job security, but it will limit upward mobility options.