> he's been able to climb up to a engineering manager in a shorter amount of time than I've been working as a SWE
If you want to be an IC, don't short change your accomplishments. Eng Mgr is not a promotion from IC, it's a career change.
The SWE career progression is much more established, and is often much more formal and understood than an Eng Mgmt track.
Your younger manager has recently gone through a significant career change that requires a significant amount of self-education to advance further. It's possible he'll advance opportunistically (if there's a vacancy) or by being clever or political, but his competency will not necessarily advance with him without him putting a significant amount of effort into learning this new career.
It's not uncommon for established SWEs to make more than engineering managers until the engineering manager has progressed to a level where they are dealing with levels of stress (business & social) that would make most people's hair fall out.
Even then many companies have career tracks that pay as well in the upper echelons for individual technical contributors as for high level eng mgrs. The one thing they have in common is that there are very few positions at the top of any career ladder. It gets competitive. Hopefully your aspirations match your talents so that you can compete for those fewer positions.
If you want to be an IC, don't short change your accomplishments. Eng Mgr is not a promotion from IC, it's a career change.
The SWE career progression is much more established, and is often much more formal and understood than an Eng Mgmt track.
Your younger manager has recently gone through a significant career change that requires a significant amount of self-education to advance further. It's possible he'll advance opportunistically (if there's a vacancy) or by being clever or political, but his competency will not necessarily advance with him without him putting a significant amount of effort into learning this new career.
It's not uncommon for established SWEs to make more than engineering managers until the engineering manager has progressed to a level where they are dealing with levels of stress (business & social) that would make most people's hair fall out.
Even then many companies have career tracks that pay as well in the upper echelons for individual technical contributors as for high level eng mgrs. The one thing they have in common is that there are very few positions at the top of any career ladder. It gets competitive. Hopefully your aspirations match your talents so that you can compete for those fewer positions.