What happens to software engineers who don't climb the corporate ladder and stay as engineers?

原帖：http://www.quora.com/Software-Engineering/What-happens-to-software-engineers-who-dont-climb-the-corporate-ladder-and-stay-as-engineers

Software Engineering: What happens to software engineers who don't climb the corporate ladder and stay as engineers? - Quora

They become ...  Unix Beards!

(Just kidding.)

They become better, more experienced, more sought-after, better-rewarded engineers. Some of the best big tech companies recognize this explicitly in their career ladders. At Google, for example, there is a separate job ladder for "individual contributors", which culminates (or once did) at "Google Fellow". An engineer at this level is commensurate with a Vice President, and has similar high-level impact -- even moreso on questions of technology, architecture and technical direction. I believe there are similar positions at Facebook, Apple, etc.

Likewise, at an early-stage startup, the company's most formidable hacker may well be more valuable than the experienced manager she reports to, and the compensation structure will reflect that. These folks are very much in demand as founding engineers, CTOs, and technical cofounders. Now that I think about it, a very strong engineer with a high risk tolerance might be the single person with the most leverage in the entire startup game.

It's true that at some companies, engineers are treated as "cogs". But you don't want to work at those places anyway, regardless of whether you want to be a manager.

翻译练习：

那些不想当公司领导而只想当工程师的软件工程师们最后怎么样了？

他们最后成为了... Unix Breads!（Unix Breads：特指一群留着大胡子的顶级工程师，大胡子成了资深工程师的象征——译者注）

(当然，这是个玩笑。)

        他们成为了更高端、更有经验、更抢手并且拿着高回报的工程师。一些顶级的大型科技公司也很清楚这是他们的职业选择。举个例子，在Google，有一个为“独立贡献者（individual contributors）”提供的独特职业通道，这个通道的顶点就是“谷歌研究员（Google Fellow）”.到达这个等级的工程师的级别与副总裁（Vice President）的级别相当，并且拥有同等高的影响力——甚至在技术问题、体系结构和技术方向上拥有更高的影响力。我相信在Facebook，Apple这些公司里也有相似的情况。
        同样，在早期起步阶段，公司里有能力的黑客总比经验丰富的经理更有价值，而且薪酬结构也体现了这点。公司对这类人才的需求比起对架构师、CTO或是技术顾问的需求更多。如今我觉得，一个强大的具有高风险承受力的工程师可能是整个启动过程中最有影响力的人物。
        现实情况是，一些公司把工程师当成“代码狗（cogs）”，而你也不会想去这样的公司工作，也不会想管理这样的公司。