I spent about 10 of those in roles where my primary function was to write code. The other 10 have involved managing programmers, coaching them, consulting with organizations about how to manage them, running a codebase assessment practice and these days, well, actually content marketing.

Therein lies the biggest lie in development. There is no career path. I've been programming professionally for 25 years, and in all 25 of those years my primary function was to write code, because I turned down any promotion that would put me in management and away from doing what I love.