[idoby]

Most people, even in tech, consider their job to be just that - a job. In the worst case, they hate it.

Also, you seem to be content with being an individual contributor engineer, which is perfectly fine, but if you want to get ahead, you're not going about it the right way.

[somesoftdev]

I've been an engineer for 20 years now. I switched to other roles 2 times but did not enjoy it that much so I went back. Salaries in engineering are decent and I prefer a job that I like over a promotion and having some extra money.

[idoby]

It's great that you know this about yourself and have been lucky enough to be able to make these kind of tradeoffs. You are in a much better place than a lot of others.