What does a developer do?

What is the normal career path for a PHP developer?

• I am a PHP developer and I have been wondering about my career path. When I look for jobs online I see job postings for Senior PHP developer and that's it. I haven't seen any higher job positions that a PHP developer can go to. Obviously there are positions like technical architect and what not but how does one reach there? Also, the salaries for a PHP developer and Senior PHP developer are not that great. Most companies that I talk to tell me that they can pay at most 65-70K for a PHP developer. So, I am assuming a Senior PHP dev will get around 75-85K. After that what's next? Where can a Senior PHP dev go next in the career path? As for me I want to be a part of a higher management team. Some day I would like to see myself as a technical architect. I can also see myself as a senior management guy. And for that I think something more has to be done than just being a PHP expert. What are you suggestions? What are your experiences from being a developer to the position that you are right now?

• Answer:

  From personal experience and of those around me. In a company most programmers begin by fixing bugs and implement new features. As they become more familiar with the company culture and technology, they are ready to be responsible of projects, and can follow-up, coordinate with other teams (PM, designers, engineers, QA, etc...), assign tasks to other engineers, and keep the manager informed about the project's status without them to be directly involved. This is usually the task of a tech lead/senior developer - they serve as the manager's proxy in projects. After you have leaded and contributed in several projects, you can decide which path you can take: stay on programming or move on to management. If you decide to stay programming, you won't be fixing bugs anymore but more involved in the technology stack and architecture of projects. And you'll probably be enforcing some standards and policies and do architecture review.  If you move on to management, it's another world. You'll have to learn to do people managing, and do less programming and more meetings. And I guess once you decide, it's that path for the rest of your career. In sum, you can either stay in programming or go to management. I don't think you can do both, because either path will keep you very occupied. And I also believe that most technical architects/principles are promoted from within the company, unless it's a startup. This is because it's very important for them to know well the company's technologies and policies in general.