I found this article interesting. The discussion about movement to management being forward looking and technical promotion being backward looking is very important.<p>What isn't focused upon as much is the fact that not only do you have to be recognized to be promoted, it is much easier to be recognized in management than without. We are more likely to promote within management than outside of it. This is a very difficult problem in the "Principle" band at Microsoft. There Dev Managers are more familiar with Dev Leads than the IC's that report to Dev Leads, so on average it is the Principle Leads who get promoted over the Principle Engineers.