I think it's a bit pathological that we equate career success with being in management. You only need so many leaders. If you get too many people trying to be l

I think it's a bit pathological that we equate career success with being in management. You only need so many leaders. If you get too many people trying to be leaders, you end up with pathological organizations that engage in a lot of bikeshed painting. I think the problem with programming is that programmers are assumed to be interchangeable; or at least, management would like to think so. To me, this seems absurd, I'd rather have one good programmer than 10 mediocre ones. (And good programmers are rare, but not impossibly so). The problem is that programmers that are 10x more productive don't get paid 10x more. (And seriously, some programmers really are 10x more productive than average).