I cannot relate to a lot of what I read here on blind on IC/PM positions, and that's not just about stellar Bay Area TCs. I'm a Data Scientist in EU/Banking, and here ICs are basically monkeys. PMs as in Product/Project Managers are also monkeys, but rather than code/analyses they do excels, powerpoints, and meeting minutes. PMs as in People Mangers are the only real path for career growth. (Side note: it still amazes me how here on Blind the PM acronym is used almost interchangeably for people and product/project, which are universes apart) Let me get into this, you basically have two career options: 1) You are a PM (as in People Manager) and climb the hierarchy of reporting lines. The bad is that you may end up in very admin-heavy positions where you have to do lots of boring corporate paperwork. You can always delegate the bulk of it to some P(roduct/oject)M though. The good is that your career is super easily quantified in terms of size/scope of unit and people managed. And TC of course follows. 2) You are an IC and you do the real work. Once you're in a senior IC position for 3+ years, you become the go-to guru who has been around since forever and "knows it all". You fundamentally just go like "my expert opinion is that we should do X, Y, Z" and then delegate execution to less senior ICs. Very occasionally, if there's something super-duper complex that nobody can solve, you go a bit deeper and come up with a solution design that somebody else will implement. You occasionally catch-up with/mentor the juniors who do the heavy lifting, and you keep at bay project/product managers on completion (actually, delegation) of tasks. High performing senior ICs tend to morph into this nowhere-written "internal management consulting" role where you become a high-level manager's private counselor and tell them what to do, i.e., setting the strategy/vision for them, validating what they come up with before they go public, doing the "tech talks" in high-level meetings etc. The good: work-wise you can basically rest (but not vest since you aren't getting any shares) working like 10 hours/week tops. The bad: your job title and position is impossible to differentiate from anyone else, because everyone with 3+ YoE is "senior" these days, and there's literally nothing after that. Your career can only be quantified by the highest level of the manager you can directly reach out to without passing by their secretary. That's your main achievement, but good luck arguing for it to externals, especially when interviewing. There is no TC hike because there is no level hike. Big Tech has these "levels/bands" independent from whether you are an IC or PM. Very nice, but that's the exception, not the rule. Maybe also because admittedly, the level of tech people in non-tech is much much lower (you know, no LC required to get in has some downsides too). I would expect to see lots of ICs getting into PM roles to advance their careers. Well, lots of those who don't go to Big Tech anyway. It doesn't look like this is happening, judging from the rather low technical preparation of most managers. Fellow DSA folks working in EU/non-tech, how is it where you are? YoE: 6 TC: 100k EUR (HCOL) #dataanalytics #datascience #europe #career #finance