I was glad to see this post by Rob describing why he was so frustrated trying to stay out of management. I’ve had the same experience in spades.
Why is it that some companies don’t seem to have a good track for programmers to follow? Often, the only way to get “promoted” is to take on management responsibility, but the skills required to be a good coder are sometimes at odds with those required to be a good manager. So why not have a technical path towards recognition?
My biggest frustration when I am working as a technologist (as opposed to a manager, and I do often flip back and forth) is that fact that many organizations often play lip service to research, innovation and cross-pollination, but then don’t provide the time in project schedules to let technologists innovate, or work on project outside the company (like open source projects) or explore what other groups in the same company are doing. It’s all about “do what you have to do to get this project done right now.” I think removing some of those barriers could go a long way towards making technologists more happy.
