[ghaff]

You're sort of arguing though that, if you don't want to go into management, you should become an extraordinary IC (or just accept you'll get paid less money).

[codegeek]

But that's true almost everywhere unless you become a consultant/freelancer (but then you are now running a business and have to find customers)

[ghaff]

Sure. Absolutely nothing specific to tech. In fact, many big tech companies have a much better IC career ladder, mostly but not entirely for engineers/devs, than non-tech companies do. Sales is the main exception I can think of.