Obviously some jobs and some managers may not "get" it, but, if you make it clear to your manager that your only interest is being an individual contributor, th

Obviously some jobs and some managers may not "get" it, but, if you make it clear to your manager that your only interest is being an individual contributor, this should totally be possible. I have only ever managed once and don't really intend to do it again, simply because I am not particularly good at it. I don't think I've ever left a company because there is pressure to ascend to management, not even Google was pushing me towards that. If you think about it, I'm sure you can think of coworkers around you that are in the boat of just being an IC long-term, usually working on specialist tasks. I think that's basically what you want, a niche that you can specialize in.