You are 35 and not a manager – The Indian IT society trauma?

I am not trying to underestimate the position of a manager.  But I hate when people point fingers at me and say “You are 35 and still not a manager, till what age can you code?”.
I am so sorry to be harsh, but I really hate those people who for various reasons think that programmers are some kind of useless mass on earth. Do not contradict that many do not think they think and its truth.

By grace of god I am personally at a position where I do not care andI love programming, technology and would like to spend rest of life doing the same. 

But with that statement many good developers would have been converted to bad managers overnight.  Frankly I blame the Indian IT society who thinks after a certain age a person is less capable of  programming.
Leaving my so called personal confidence aside thought to look at the other side of the mirror on, why majority developers are forced to become managers.









Social trauma 

For some reasons when someone (especially senior managers) knows you are a developer they start thinking about you as a person who is not a decision maker or probably they  just imagine you as  technical lover  who has  no understanding of how to do business .


Some people also go one step further to conclude that a pure technical person can never be leader or motivate any one.

A person at the age of 30 is considered a failure, if he is involving himself in coding.

A manager allocating resources from a excel sheet is more respected by IT society than a developer or a technical architect slogging to solve problems.

Major people of IT society envy how a manager has his own cabin, how he commands, how he does so called project management, allocates resources, motivates people (some project managers have the illusion that they are bill gates) , implements processes blah blah. This is the first reason I think that a technical person starts thinking that a manager is a better fit than a technical role. He starts dreaming about the comfort zone and luxury enjoyed in a managerial position.

Technical person does not have money or the power

In India the salary difference of a senior technical person and equivalent experience manager is considerable. 

A manager who is working on a excel sheet, PPT and documents are paid more than technical people who actually create the software.

Adding to everything some senior managers have this feeling that a technical person can be made happy by giving challenging technical work and he will not crib for anything. Oh yes, I love technical work but at the end of the day I have to show my face to the family.

I am not saying start paying the senior technical person’s more. But this difference should be minimized so that atleast senior technical people start feeling that yes this role at this is age is also appreciated by the industry.

Technical architect position a joke

Many people can argue that, then choose the path of a technical architect. Oh, gosh, this position in Indian IT industry is abused (sorry for crossing limits) to a extent that there are people who refrain to take this position any more. I sometimes think this position is created to create a illusion that they are growing in their career.

As a technical architect, they expect you do everything. Right from technical solution, to nitty gritty problem solving and providing hands on solution to the developer’s.



Wondering when Indian IT industry will start respecting technical people , give them appropriate respectable position , his words are considered during decision making and he stands shoulder to shoulder with the project manager  in terms of decision making.Sorry for the loud mouth. I do not have the genes to write these kinds of article but I am sure it echoes feelings of lot of technical people out there.Would like to hear from you guys, if your organization has a proper road map for techies and do they really feel comfortable with the road map.