[roryirvine]

If people think that not being hands-on for a year is unmanageable, then we as an industry are doing something horrifically wrong.

It would mean that no engineer could ever aspire to become a parent, take a sabbatical, further their education, or experiment with alternate career paths.

But I promise you that that is not actually the case. In fact, it is often the engineers who've stifled every other part of their life that are most likely to struggle in their mid-careers and beyond.

[zmmmmm]

Yes, I don't mean actually taking time away - more organisationally, once you assume a role that is divorced from technical aspects and then try to come back to managing those without hands on experience. You will find that other more technically informed people rise up and start to become decision makers - you can't be authoritative any more and constantly have to ask someone else to give input on technical aspects since you aren't up to date with the current set of assumptions about it.