| Great topic. Yes/no. It depends. Context is king. If we're talking VP/C-suite level compensation, probably not. If we're talking engineering manager / director level, the answer is likely yes. The issue is, the higher up you go, the less roles there are (for either manager or dev). It's usually way easier to jump from dev to manager than from dev to staff/principal engineer. There is also likely a cycle of having to prove yourself at new companies (often staff roles are promoted from within), but I am seeing more and more staff roles on job boards. It's actually a great career move to jump into management for a period of time, pick up the skills, then jump back to dev. It would make your impact even higher once you become a staff engineer. I don't know how useful this is. But if you love to code and don't want to manage people, it's a solid route. If you want fast compensation increases in the short term, go for the management route. Edit: I chose the management route because I like support, basically. Helping people, solving problems, and seeing people grow is my favourite thing. You can do this as a dev, but I found that I enjoy this stuff more than coding. I also love systems thinking (computers, people, process). So it's a good fit for me :) |