[jebarker]

I think about this plateauing question quite a bit. I'm 44 and around the E6 level. I think it is very challenging for me to progress much further up the ladder. I'm not confident I have the skillset required and trying to develop those (leadership and strategic) skills feels very hard to me. But I don't find that at all disappointing since I'm fairly confident I can continue to progress sideways. Maybe it's naive or arrogant but I think I could probably get close to a similar level again in a different field and eventually that'll be what I try to do.

[d13z]

The same is happening to me. I live in Europe and I'm a staff engineer with almost 40 y/o but I have to be honest and I think I'm not going to be able to grow on the corporate track. Whatever comes next will come from other sources, maybe consulting, maybe teaching, but I don't see an option moving forward, and I'm kind of fine with it.