Hope I'm not being too much of an internet psychoanalyst here, but... Couldn't agree more. I think there's this perception from legacy engineering companies t

Hope I'm not being too much of an internet psychoanalyst here, but... Couldn't agree more. I think there's this perception from legacy engineering companies that a career track is a single line transitioning from IC to management, with some overlap defined by either pay grade or prestige (or both) between the seniors from IC and the juniors from management. This might be the source of OP's feelings of frustration. I just crested the 10-year mark on my career and one of the things I try to sniff out in interviews is whether there's a genuinely workable long-term IC track which doesn't just fold into management, cause seniority in management in my experience is directly proportional to the number of hours you spend in meetings every week, and that's reaaally not for me. @OP: perhaps you could go into more detail about why you feel unhappy being an IC to younger managers? I get that there's the accountability structure aspect of it, but it sounds like you're frustrated because they're younger despite them being in an orthogonal career track. Are the managers you dislike incompetent?