After working for a few years, in any discipline, you’ll certainly face a turning point: Should you stay as a senior, or switch to a managerial role?

While we’re used to think about going into the managerial space as a promotion, it’s not necessarily the case. In fact, it’s something completely different.

When you work in some disciplines like customer support or retail sales, your ability to grow in your career will hit a ceiling unless you start managing people.

In these jobs, beyond a certain skill level, the only path for growth is learning to manage. But that’s not a universal truth.

Many organizations have paths for advancement that don’t require managing others. Particularly those that seek to attract skilled or creative talent. Instead of learning to manage people, you can practice to become a distinguished expert in your field.

With these organizations you can either grow as a manager or as an individual contributor. With both tracks offering equal opportunities for impact, growth, and compensation. Which means becoming a manager is not a promotion, it’s a transition to another different track.

In fact, remote companies are always looking for skilled individuals not only managers. And if you are a highly skilled individual, you should certainly look for a remote job as those companies are the ones respecting expertise, time, and your work/life balance.

There are multiple websites to look for remote jobs, but we recommend WeWorkRemotely, RemoteOK, and RemoteJobsMA (for Moroccan audience). And if you need any help getting a remote job, we have an ebook for this.