I think many otherwise technical people start moving into management because of a desire to have a bigger value impact in their company, but there is a poor bre

I think many otherwise technical people start moving into management because of a desire to have a bigger value impact in their company, but there is a poor breakdown of responsibilities between technical positions and management positions. Modern organizational structures (esp at big companies), usually puts in non-technical management in places where they take on higher-level responsibilities driving product and business. Think product managers, or high level sales directors, etc. Technical contributors' skills are treated as "too valuable" to waste on these management duties, but paradoxically, the opportunity for a technical person to contribute at a high level or early decision points ends up as something often held separate from the engineering career ladder (until you get very high up). I come across mentions of WWII era projects, designs of famous aircraft etc where the designs were incredibly well suited to the needs, and produced in incredibly short time-frames. Some of that is obviously the war-time focus, but I also notice that in many of those projects the lead position is not a non-technical manager, but a technical chief engineer where management functions must have been subservient. Unfortunately, there isn't a huge amount written about the organizational day-to-day project structures during WWII. I think at least some of the appeal of startups and smaller companies for technically oriented people is that division of responsibility is not as formalized and contributions can flow more easily between different domains. But again, startups are structured where technical founders are at the levers of control, and that's inverted from how many companies end up organized as they grow.