It depends on the company. I worked at a large software company and the promotion track for software engineers went all the way up to something like Fellow Engi

It depends on the company. I worked at a large software company and the promotion track for software engineers went all the way up to something like Fellow Engineer or Principal Engineer. Almost no one got to those roles because they were so high up the track. After the several levels of Senior Engineer, they had Expert Engineer. One person I knew made it to that level (after some 20-30 years experience) and still programmed every day. Edit: that said, I don't consider it a dead end job if you have to switch out of programming to keep advancing because often to become an engineering manager at companies they want you to have programming experience. I think a dead end job is one in which your experience serves no purpose or as no pre-requisite for better paying jobs.