Programming is a career dead end?

Love to program? Then do not dream about the position of CEO, unless you start your own business, and even in this case, management is likely to push coding out of your life.

In most companies, as long as you write the code, you have a limited number of promotions. These are usually positions from junior to timlid. Perhaps you get the position of architect, but more often than not, architects do not write code.

If you decide to go over to the managers, then all roads are open for you. The former CEO of the company where I work, started out as a programmer 25 years ago, 10 years later he switched to management, and went all the way to the CEO of a four-billion company. Not so long ago, he retired, having a mansion, cars and not having any worries. In the meantime, I work with people who started with him and who are still just leading software engineers.
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Not fair? Perhaps, but if you really like programming, you have a decent salary, you like your work, do you need constant promotions? The problem is that no matter how strong you are in programming, you will not get as much as ordinary managers. Maybe we should give up and become a manager?

My former leader was a programmer for 15 years before he assembled our group 5 years ago. When the group was formed and began to work successfully, it occasionally fixed minor bugs, and made uncritical changes in the code, just because everyone else was busy, but he never seriously programmed again. In the end, he went further, received the position of Vice President in a well-known company in another state, with much greater responsibility, importance and, of course, salary. Now there is almost nothing left of our group, and most of us have already transferred, or are still only switching to the same job, with the same salary.

Of course, maybe you are very lucky, and you work as a programmer, with a huge salary, but agree that this is a great rarity. I think people working in Google and other large companies have much higher salaries than the average programmer, but these salaries are still limited, unlike what managers have.
Another rare example is my neighbor who has worked in several startups. And they all fell through until he came to the one that fired, enriching him with 12 million dollars. Now he works as a programmer for pennies, simply because he loves to program, and does not need money and additional responsibility.

During my career, I have more than once learned the bitter taste of management. In the first startup in my life, I was a team leader, but I also worked on the press, investors, hiring people, marketing, and much more. It took an incredible amount of time, and it was very rarely possible to program. In the second startup, I was a product manager, so I could not program at all. After that, I promised myself to do only my favorite thing!

On the other hand, my sister started as a programmer in her company, but after half a year she became a manager. She is now one of the most important Vice Presidents of the company. And again, all paths are open, if you leave programming. But if you, like me, love to program, remember, you will not climb high on the career ladder. It sounds silly, but you have a choice between doing your favorite thing and making good money doing something else. For some, the best choice is to start your own company. For someone, turn a career in a different direction, leaving programming. For me, programming is what I want to do, but you have to be realistic.

Whatever you do, you need to find a balance between doing your favorite business and making enough money for a comfortable life for your family. And often, this is not a very easy choice.