<p>
</p>
<p>If you go into management, your career is less secure. When a company is sold or goes through layoffs, the product managers, general managers, and other business positions are the first to go. Technical engineers and operators/technicians are the last to go. Also, most business units go through restructuring every few years, and there’s the potential to be made “redundant”. That doesn’t happen in technical positions unless a plant is closed (and if you work in a high-capital industry or one with a predictable life style, that is not a frequent occurrence). Finally, it is easier to hide your actual performance (or lack thereof) in a technical position. You can do nothing all day, and as long as people see you in the plant talking to people and looking at things, you can often hide your lack of performance (just call it “firefighting”). As long as you understand the process well, you will have some value to the company. On the other hand, a business manager’s performance is much easier to evaluate quantitatively, and he will be quickly fired for lack of performance.</p>