[cableshaft]

Well he ended up leaving, so they didn't get him as a developer either. That's a significant catch 22 in a lot of these companies.

There's no path for promotion beyond "developer" without becoming a manager, but then you're not doing the work you're great at, so there's a disincentive to promote you, but the developers want to have career growth, so they get restless and eventually leave the company for a different one, usually getting a salary boost but possibly still being stuck as a 'developer' because they saw no advancement at their previous company.

I'm struggling through a similar situation now, although I have project management and team lead experience, I was never officially promoted because they were small companies and didn't want to bump my salary (or believed they had a flat heirarchy and "titles were meaningless").