But that's not what the blog post we're responding to was about - this was about anecdotal evidence that the MIT alumni who were still 'engineers' at 50 were wo

But that's not what the blog post we're responding to was about - this was about anecdotal evidence that the MIT alumni who were still 'engineers' at 50 were worse off than their peers with more glamorous job titles. Maybe quite a few of the ones who answered 'not an engineer' were actually like you. Chief something, CTO, head- lead- something. If you were interviewing an applicant for a dev position, have you never wondered "you worked there for 15 years, why were you never promoted?". I doubt the same would be asked of someone who had been working as a surgeon for 15 years.