[arethuza]

"it's the people managers making strategic technical decisions"

I'm 54 and I'm pleased to say that I've never worked anywhere where that was the general rule - I've always been on the "technical leadership" side of things (CTO/Head of Architecture) since my 20s and I pretty much see my job as ensuring that "strategic technical decisions" get made in the right way.

[ryandrake]

As CTO, did you have direct reports? If so, you were a people manager and:

> "it's the people managers making strategic technical decisions"

...was true in your case.

In my experience (over 2 decades now, wow I can’t believe it) the people making the broad, strategic decisions and influencing outside of their orgs all happen to also have direct reports and usually those reports are people managers too. They have titles like “director” and “VP” and “CTO”. How many of those people have you seen who are individual contributors?

[bluGill]

The obvious influence belongs to the managers at all levels. ICs have less obvious roles, but good managers look to their ICs for guidance on what decisions to make. Thus there is a lot of indirect authority in the roles that seem to have no power - for the IC that learns to use it.

[jrochkind1]

I'm jealous. I don't think your experience is typical.