Note that this can make employment in your 50's and 60's more difficult though, even if it shouldn't.
Also, I once worked for a military contractor and one of the lead engineers told me the company valued people who wanted to remain engineers instead of moving into management. It was the path he'd followed himself as one of the founders of the company. I believed him and avoided management, only to find eventually that there was no such path to becoming a senior engineer who did no management. So I quit, which caused me a lot of trouble, but it also denied the company the benefit of many years of my learning on the job (there are few ways to prepare for a career in top secret military contracting because you have to get a clearance first before you can start studying many of the things they work on, so a trained employee is much more valuable than in many other jobs.) The senior engineer had the right idea, but he'd never actually checked that his career path was viable for anyone who was not a founder. I think this is a mistake that many companies make, essentially forcing people into management. It is very similar to the idea behind the "Peter Principle", that people rise until they reach their level of incompetence and then remain there. Engineers rise until they are forced into management and have to stop doing what they do best.
Also, I once worked for a military contractor and one of the lead engineers told me the company valued people who wanted to remain engineers instead of moving into management. It was the path he'd followed himself as one of the founders of the company. I believed him and avoided management, only to find eventually that there was no such path to becoming a senior engineer who did no management. So I quit, which caused me a lot of trouble, but it also denied the company the benefit of many years of my learning on the job (there are few ways to prepare for a career in top secret military contracting because you have to get a clearance first before you can start studying many of the things they work on, so a trained employee is much more valuable than in many other jobs.) The senior engineer had the right idea, but he'd never actually checked that his career path was viable for anyone who was not a founder. I think this is a mistake that many companies make, essentially forcing people into management. It is very similar to the idea behind the "Peter Principle", that people rise until they reach their level of incompetence and then remain there. Engineers rise until they are forced into management and have to stop doing what they do best.