Interesting, and explains a lot. I would also question why managers are the "next level" from the contributing roles. I understand it helps because you already

Interesting, and explains a lot. I would also question why managers are the "next level" from the contributing roles. I understand it helps because you already have the experience and knowledge of contributing so it would make sense to scale upwards by managing a team, however I think the manager role does not overlap that much in terms of skills with contributors. All the experience you build, especially with technical skills, isn't very useful as a manager, and I think good managers transition despite their technical skills, not so much because of it.