It's insane to me how the manager culture is. Somehow going from an engineer to a manager is a "promotion"?

No, they are equals. Just different people doing different kinds of jobs. There should be two tracks and people should be able to choose. If engineers feel they have to become managers to grow their careers, all you are getting will just be unhappy engineers and bad managers.

A weakness of European companies is that with very few exceptions, there is no equivalent IC role to managerial roles beyond maybe junior management.

There are companies that promise this, but it is rarely done. For whatever reason, management is universally convinced that ICs have lower value and are more replacable than managers.

It's also a distinctly European trait that European executives can look at US tech companies, who have IC roles on all levels, see that they are the most successful and innovative companies in the world, and conclude that yes, maybe capping IC benefits and adding another level of management is the way to go!

I know it's ironic to say this about Intel, a notoriously management heavy company, but they did do the dual tracks which I always appreciated. A principal engineer was functionally on par with a senior manager, and a fellow with a VP. This meant that good engineers weren't forced into roles they weren't interested in, and why many stayed there 20+ years.

The issue is, even with two tracks, there's every chance that more people end up taking the management path because it's seen as an easy way to climb the ranks. Your success can be built from your teams success, rather than your own individual contribution.

> No, they are equals.

People want this to be true but it just isn’t in reality and can’t be. Companies are pyramid shaped and the higher up you go the more managing you do and correspondingly less engineering.

It’s baked into the structure that seniority and power is biased towards managers

> Just different people doing different kinds of jobs

Except the manager is the decider, and controls the fate of the IC. That makes them unequal, even if IC salaries were higher.

There's a rather famous saying by ASMLs former CEO:

"There are no important people at ASML. Only roles with more responsibilities."

In your (great) fantasy, are managers allowed to keep secrets from their reports?

> No, they are equals.

The salary is not equal.