Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
In the Netherlands, the reason often is this: Everybody wants to be "The Manager". It's where every career path should lead according to many people, and it's the only thing that's often vehemently pursued. Often, it also earns you more, even if your level of education is lower than the people you manage, and your work may actually be easier.
Being the boss of a two-man IT department (including said boss) seems to earn you more status (and money) than being Dr. Janssen trying to finally complete that compiler that will make all new C++ programs 125% faster. The first will probably have "Manager" on his tag, and the second will have "Software Engineer". The first is having a career, the second just has a job.
Almost everybody, even the ones that start out as engineers, start going for the (assistant) team leader and (assistant) manager jobs as soon as possible.
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THis is because managers are in charge and like politicians they raise their own salaries (and those beneath them so that they can raise their own by virtue of being the boss of the manager under them).
This is the way of the world--the guy doing the coding, even though he may be the most valuable to the end product has little say in his salary. He's too busy working to play politics so by default he ends up lower on the salary totem pole. It doesn't mean it should be that way, but in the US he/she has the option of taking his knowledge and starting his own company. And it happens over and over because larger companies end up paying "infastructure" -- management until the engineers get tired of it and leave. Or they get tired of doing the long hours and work and decide to be a manager because it's easier and pays more.