[schreiaj]

Having left a company that also rhymed with Frugal - this somewhat checks out. I do think smaller companies have more options for people to remain ICs somewhat longer. The catch is that ICs do somewhat more than write code.

A few months ago I was the engineer supporting a new ask from marketing, after listening to their requests and evaluating what tools we had I wrote exactly 0 lines of code and we launched on time and without issues in part because I figured out how to use the levers we'd build into existing systems to do what they needed. It's engineering work but not development work.

Outside FAANGs there's more focus on contributing to success than simply contributing LOC. (I left where I was in part because I felt I was penalized for finding efficient ways to do things rather than churning out LoC)