[blister]

Dude, you absolutely should be trying to be a manager in 3 years, if you want to go down the management track.

Depending on company size, you should probably be a team-lead or something by then.

Junior developers that remain "solo" workers after 3+ years in the industry is a bad sign for value. If you've been developing for a while, at the very least you should be put in a leadership position from a project perspective. Management/leadership experience doesn't just pop up out of nowhere. It's a skill you have to work really, really hard at. Take every leadership opportunity you can grab. You don't have to be "the boss" in the formal sense of the word, but you absolutely should be working towards a leadership role.

[scottLobster]

Depends on the industry. None of my current managers have anything less than 10 years experience, even at the lowest level (I'm at a big old defense contractor). First promotion from associate developer to staff developer typically comes after two years, and it's not due to lack of talent. Likewise our team leads and SMEs are often pushing 10-20 years and are still non-managerial. The program would likely fall apart for a few months if all of them just left at once, so I wouldn't say they lack value. :)

A manager with a scant 3 years of experience undervaluing a "solo dev" (whatever that is, unless you're talking about 1-person companies) with 10 years experience sounds like a good setup for an episode of Silicon Valley.

[le-mark]

There are a whole lot of senior developers who've done a turn as lead/manager, only to go back to dev. It's not for everyone, and promoting this narrative that it should be everyones goal is kind of shallow.