> it seems to odd to me that many companies see management as a logical "next" step in someone's career I was lucky enough to work at a company where one logic

> it seems to odd to me that many companies see management as a logical "next" step in someone's career I was lucky enough to work at a company where one logical next step was to move into technical consultancy with companies, so rather than managing a project, you became the technical interface between the customer and the project. At best, this could involve conducting or facilitating some really fascinating collaboration both with the customer and the supporting devs. It sometimes also involved myself and the PM doing a good-cop-bad-cop routine with the customers, which could be 'interesting'.