>>12791509Uhm, no, engineering managers almost always have an engineering backgrounds. Especially at engineering and consulting firms. In the rest industry over 40% of managers in general have engineering degrees and engineering is considered one of the fastest entry points onto the corporate ladder.
Engineers do not hold contempt for managers, who are usually technical managers that are smarter and more experience than them. The only exception is at shitty companies where you sometimes get MBAs managing engineers.
>>12792119R&D engineers tend to get paid more than both technical managers at engineering firms and middle management at most companies. R&D engineers advance to project leaders. No one does R&D their entire life.
Example at my company HR managers get 60k base, technical managers get 90k base, R&D engineer (PhD) gets 120k base and my project leader gets 200k base.
