[zerr]

One common misconception about senior engineers - akin to "promotion to management", some assume that seniors should be non-ICs (non-individual-contributors), should "multiply" their force "upon" others, organize and attend lots of meetings, "across departments", work on PowerPoint presentations, mostly do such non-coding tasks, because "only coding is so junior"... This is a good way to alienate real senior engineers who just enjoy engineering. It is perfectly valid to be IC senior/staff/principal/fellow engineer.

[HL33tibCe7]

Senior engineers generally should have a force multiplicative effect. "IC" doesn't mean "work in a silo interacting with nobody ever". But I agree that many orgs have a problem measuring this and focus on BS.