OP said:
...and this level of admin and red tape has me considering jacking it all in and going to do something else..
I feel as though we might be cut from the same cloth on this so I'll share what I think I've learned having pondered this for a solid decade now.
1) Task wise, one kinda just likes what they like. Sure, there are folks who like everything and transition seamlessly into management and other higher level responsibilities seamlessly. I'm not one of them though.
2) In the interest of full disclosure, I have a friend that I worked with for a long time at a high end firm (RJC, same as dik) who had finagled a pretty great situation for himself. He toughed it out, climbed to principal, and now basically spends most of his time
facilitating the design of project engineers while those guys and gals go to most of the boring meetings. So he's still technical, only hands on for the real interesting problems and, of course, spends some time on big proposals etc. It's a good gig and I'm jealous. Big bucks and fun task composition. Making it happen requires a particular set of circumstance in my opinion though:
a) A high end firm that attracts high end junior staff that are fun and interesting to teach and grow with.
b) A high end firm that lands significant architectural projects, often institutional in nature, that have enough fee in them to be able to support a talented group really exerting themselves intellectually.
c) You gotta be able to convince your superiors, who are mostly business guys, that you're enough of a business guy to promote to principal in the first place. Without this, you'll struggle to exert the power within your organization to be able to create a niche like this for yourself.
I did my management tour of duty at a lesser firm and concluded that wasn't ever going to be fun for me.
3) I've also seriously considered switching careers because of my lack of enthusiasm for the higher level consulting activities. And, frankly, I feel that there's real merit in that given that:
a) Management of most things will tend to be more lucrative than management of consulting engineering.
b) As my accountant brother is fond of saying, "once you're managing anything, does it really matter what your managing as far as you passions go?". Engineering deliverables, investments, widgets...
c) I actually feel that structural engineering work is
especially difficult for me to manage precisely because I'm so interested in it. Successful management is mostly about making clients happy, PM'ing to make a profit, and motivating a team. Many of those goals actually run contrary to quality design engineering in my opinion. Were I to manage, I feel that I would be better at managing another kind of product.
4) As a last ditch effort to fight the good fight and make it work doing what I like, I've basically tried to make myself the world's highest paid EIT by starting my own little firm and doing a lot of specialty delegated design work and subcontract for other EOR's who trust me technically. The jury's still out on whether or not it will work but the challenges are many:
a) Income volatility. It only works because I live in Canada and do a lot of USD work.
b) Basically jumping off the traditional career ladder and "not growing" in the eyes of potential, future employers.
c) Wildly variable hours.
d) Now I have to do a a fair bit of my own business administration and manage a couple of employees so it's not like I've shed that 100%.
All that said, doing my own thing is an adventure that I'm glad to be trying my hand at. Life's not super interesting 24/7 and I'm clearly not going to be a famous rock star on an astronaut. Pretty much everybody has the opportunity take a swing at a couple of life's
biggest adventures though:
e) Having a family.
f) Entrepreneurship.
So swing for the fences I say. I do acknowledge, of course that it is possible to be an entrepreneur within an existing organization. Once might say that it's actually mandatory to reach the highest echelons.
