Earlier quoted context omitted.
More and more senior engineers are non-coding or practically so. I see it everywhere. As industries have matured, people have matured into higher level management roles and there hasn't been enough people to replace them. There's still plenty of fresh blood, software engineering actually looks a lot like the labor shortages do in the rest of the market—there's a lack of people who actually want to do the work. Everyo…
Not for nothing, but that sounds a bit like a market peak if I've heard one. Why would the person actually doing the work settle for a mere 300k when the director/VP gets double without doing the hard work? there is a balance here - but it seems like a good time to lure engineers with real equity compensation to early stage startups.
It is much easier to teach someone how to code than to teach them how to manage. Management is two parts: (1) making sure people produce a good product for a little expenditures as possible, and (2) manage liability from employees. Particularly now, the second part is very difficult to teach.
Most people do not have great judgement when it comes to managing people and it's a really hard skill to teach. You can make someone watch training videos all day that tell them explicitly what NOT to do and they will still do exactly that. Everyone wants to believe they are good at management—very few people actually are. Most fail upwards into it.