[ale] Technical Career Paths

[Benjamin Scherrey]

I strongly encourage you to consider taking your skills elsewhere,
preferably a smaller company. There is an excellent book called
"Barbarians to Bureaucrats" (I don't recall the author now) that
describes at great length the situation you're in. You really need to
step back and evaluate your priorities. Is your interest a "career
path" in which you keep advancing within the company until you retire,
or do you want to keep challanging your technical skills and moving up
to more interesting projects? In any large company that is an
either/or decision. Typically to properly balance both you really have
to start your own business but startups can be found that provide a
lot of this opportunity as well.

	Good luck,

		Ben Scherrey

jemcdevitt at mindspring.com wrote:
> 
> This is kinda of any topic, but I just wanted to get a bead on what
> other folks are running into.  My basic question is, how many of you
> work at organizations that have a defined career path for technical
> personnel that doesn't require moving into what has been historically
> called "management"?
<snip>