The Visibility Tax is for the senior engineer who keeps getting nudged toward management and is not sure he is allowed to want something else. It names the tax firms charge engineers who do the work without performing it in the room where promotions get decided, and it makes the case for staying at the keyboard anyway, on purpose, with your eyes open about what it costs.
Written from fifteen years writing code for a living, from a small product firm in Hyderabad to Microsoft to a career built on staying technical, this is not a playbook for operating at the top of the track. It is the case for staying on it long enough for one to matter.