Comment by joshuamorton

I mean, this is true and also not true. The management ladder does start higher and arguably does end higher with C-suite titles (though even that may not be the case, e.g. Google now has a Chief Technologist or two, who are SVP/C-suite level). But at the major tech companies under discussion in the parent, yeah the levels do map basically 1:1.

You can maybe argue that it's easier to advance on the management side, and I think that was certainly true pre-2023, but since then there's been a clear tightening of easy empire building advancement, and at least in my neck of the woods, I've seen IC-track advancement has been faster from staff to principal than from manager to director.