A career in Engineering is pretty much “up or out”, you have to move onto management if you want to continue your career, it’s very hard to have an entire career in engineering as an “individual contributor”.
To be an “individual contributor” and do any good at all you have to be a SIGNIFICANT individual contributor. Very few have the stuff it takes for that. Most are a unique combination of wisdom, business acumen and exceptional engineering talent able to get to the heart of the whole problem very quickly cutting through layers of nonsense, confusion and previous errors and driving to an economic and technical solution nearly effortlessly. They choose to be engineers when they could be anything they want to be.
When they walk into a board room they may not be the highest paid person there but they are the only person smart high paid people listen to when they want answers and solutions.
Yep...Son, pushing 50, has done very well in ME; but he had to network very energetically to move up into better positions over the years.
I am 35 years into my computer engineering (programmer) career and 25 years at my current company. For the past 10 years I have been repeatedly offered ‘promotions’ into management, but turned down every one of them. I earn more than all but one manager I have ever had at this company. They have a 7 level technical track where the top 2 or 3 levels can actually earn more than the engineering managers. I am currently at level 6 and have been told I can expect to be promoted to level 7 next year. My late career earnings blow away all 8 listed here. I have a few friends working for other companies that have expanded engineering career paths similarly to keep good engineers doing what they do best instead of forcing them into management.