<p>Or…</p>
<p>You can still be a grunt engineer but you are SO accomplished or such an expert that you are hired as an “independent” consulting engineer billing at something like $100-$150/hour. Sure those managers are “bossing” you around, but what do you care? You are probably making more money than them.</p>
<p>…and you have ZERO folks reporting to you which means ZERO performance reviews to give which means (most likely) you are working max 7 hours, 59 minutes a day.</p>