> Most of the rest of the time these folks just smile and nod and continue not caring, and companies can't afford the hassle of firing them, then you open LinkedIn years later and turns out somehow they've failed up to manager, architect or executive while you're still struggling along as a code peasant who happens to take pride in their work.
Wow. I am probably very lucky, but most of managers, and especially architects I know are actually also exceptional engineers. A kind of exception was a really nice, helpful and proactive guy who happened to just not be a great engineer. He was still very useful for being nice, helpful and proactive, and was being promoted for that. "Failing up" to management would actually make a lot of sense for him, unfortunately he really wanted to code though.
Wow. I am probably very lucky, but most of managers, and especially architects I know are actually also exceptional engineers. A kind of exception was a really nice, helpful and proactive guy who happened to just not be a great engineer. He was still very useful for being nice, helpful and proactive, and was being promoted for that. "Failing up" to management would actually make a lot of sense for him, unfortunately he really wanted to code though.