The John Carmack interview with Lex Friedman - it reminded me that becoming a specialized IC can be a viable terminal career state; that moving into management needn’t be the ultimate goal.
I don't know the specifics of this case, but someone can be a technical leader with significant impact, without having a large number of direct or indirect reports.
> someone can be a technical leader with significant impact, without having a large number of direct or indirect reports.
Can you explain what you mean by this?
In my (limited) knowledge of Carmack, he is both a craftsman and a businessperson... he founded several companies and was the CTO of Oculus for a while. Hard to imagine there not being direct or indirect reports in that case.
In either case, he's definitely better known as a thought leader and rockstar developer rather than an effective executive, I suppose. I think he left Meta in part because he couldn't really get past all the red tape and move the company where he thought Oculus needed to go.
That doesn't mean he never gets to code anymore, but he's not really just an IC anymore, is he?