I would certainly say that a career in IT is defined by which track you choose. Are you familiar with the growing body of evidence that shows not many people ar

I would certainly say that a career in IT is defined by which track you choose. Are you familiar with the growing body of evidence that shows not many people are employed in a fashion commensurate with their experience after the age of 40 to 45? That's equivalent to the partner track. To review it slightly -- You either become a greybeard (partner), you become a manager (could also be considered a type of partner), you become a highly paid consultant but don't achieve your previous salary-equivalent. If you miss your mark and don't achieve one of those, either you wash out of the field, or you have a difficult time finding a place and when you do you accept one that is not in line with your experience. (ex: You were an AIX admin paid $120k/yr, now you are a contractor for Dell making 4-hour response service calls on server hardware.) And I would also not say that a job at Google or Microsoft is for life (you get stack ranked out pretty fast at Microsoft as you age), nor would I say that the pay's that good unless you're really awesome. I've gotten SF Bay offers, and after you factor for cost of living changes, they're much less than I make for my current company telecommuting from central Texas.