[amyjess]

> But guess which one led to an office at the end and which one did not? They weren't equivalent at all in practice.

At my company, the technical track includes Architect as a director-level position, and they get their own offices just like actual Directors. I think that's even weirder. We have one architect in my department, and he has this giant office. It's one of the bigger offices in the area, even (about twice as big as the Director of Product Management's office next door). He doesn't manage people, and he spends most of his time designing software and writing code just like the rest of us. Going into his office is a really weird feeling, and it's outright surreal seeing my boss (who also has a cube, because he's a Sr. Manager and not a Director) go into his office to have a design discussion.