Good Article!

Just a few points.

“At some point in your engineering career, you have three options for growth…”

There are far more than just those three options. For example there is private consulting work (of all kinds) and entrepreneurship (just to name two). Private consultants for one have the ability to grow by acquiring complimentary skills and then offerering those skill as a service. For example, I know of an individual who added doctorate level organizational psychology to her engineering skill set and grew as a personal consultant for development teams using that combination of skills.

“…with a goal of becoming an Architect or CTO down the lane. You’re not much of a people person…”

I’m not sure why you frame the conversation the way you do here. There are those who learn not to associate career growth with climbing corporate ladders. There are organizations that don’t have a CTO role. There are people who are not looking to ascend to the highest possible level of dominance that can be reached. I can point to dozens of indie game shops, for example, where developers form more of a flat cooperative of collaborating individuals and the only goal is to create a shared vision. In these places growth equals finishing the project and perhaps, aside from you salary, profiting a bit from the fruits of your creation (and then doing it all over again).

I did enjoy the article but I just don’t agree very much with the framed premise of “there are three things you can do with your career as an engineer — pick one!” mind set. In reality there are many things you can do besides picking one of three ways to climb a ladder. There are many opportunities out there. Corporate ascendancy in itself is but one, and a project management role is but a one of many possibilities for so-called growth as an engineer.