but it's still pretty limited compared to what being an executive or manager can make If you're just going to arbitrarily pick some hypothetical comparison, su

but it's still pretty limited compared to what being an executive or manager can make If you're just going to arbitrarily pick some hypothetical comparison, sure, it's limited. But that isn't a useful contrast. Most managers are in dead-end jobs themselves (the mere facet of the pyramid dictates this). Very few rise higher, and are more likely to have young upstarts jump above them. Most make fairly poor pay -- I worked as a dev lead at a bank and was at a pay scale that put me above every single non senior VP or above in the entire organization. 50,000+ employees. My pay as a developer was in a band normally reserved for a small handful of executives. The very, very few who went the management route and won the lottery, so to speak. I absolutely love this profession, and have resisted all paths that would pull me out of it. I make great money for doing something I love.