To the Midlife Engineer Who Was Never Promoted — Why It Is Fine Not to Become a Leader, in Data

On the day I received my 20-year service award, a colleague twenty years younger was promoted into a leadership role. I congratulated him, and something quietly ached. Is that feeling abnormal? Lacan, Erikson, and seventy years of longitudinal research have an answer.

1. That feeling is not yours alone

Let me be honest.

I received a service award at the company where I have spent twenty years. Around the same time, a colleague born in the 2000s was promoted to a leadership role. I smiled and said, “Congratulations,” and there was no lie in that. He has the skill and the leadership.

But when I sat alone at home that evening, a corner of my chest ached, quietly.

I know that becoming a leader means more meetings, less time to write code, and more dealing with people problems. To be honest, that kind of role does not appeal to me. And yet I felt a sting. What is this contradiction?

There was relief, too. “Thank goodness it wasn’t me.” And right behind it came self-doubt. “Do I really not want it, or am I rationalizing the fact that I gave up?”

To understand this feeling, I dug through Lacan, Erikson, longitudinal studies, and financial data. The conclusion, up front: this feeling is not abnormal. It is the structure of human desire itself.

2. Lacan’s “desire of the Other” — what you want is not the promotion

Jacques Lacan’s most famous thesis goes like this.

“Man’s desire is the desire of the Other.”

This contains three meanings.

First, we desire to be recognized. Lacan, by way of Hegel and Kojève, wrote: “It is in the desire of the Other that man’s desire finds meaning — not because the Other holds the keys to the desired object, but because the first object of desire is to be recognized by the Other.” What we want is not the title “leader.” It is recognition — from the company, from colleagues, from society.

Second, we desire what we believe the Other wants of us. The desire for promotion may not be something that bubbled up naturally from within. It can be the internalized residue of family expectations, social conventions, and corporate culture — the frame that says “you have succeeded only if you have been promoted.”

Third, promotion is what Lacan called objet petit a — the cause of desire that can never be filled. “The more we try to fill the empty space within us, the more we desire — because what we are chasing is an impossible object, the void itself.” This is why even after one promotion, satisfaction does not arrive; the gaze simply turns to the next promotion.

Lacan was fond of a particular illustration: a hungry child who refuses food. What the child wants is not the food but the love of the person who hands it over. If the food is offered with impatience or out of duty, the child refuses. In the same way, the essence of what we feel when we ache about a promotion is not the title. It is recognition of one’s being.

So it is normal to feel this. In fact, if you can perceive the structure of your own desire, that is the healthy state. Being able to ask “Is what I want really a promotion, or recognition?” is itself the process of becoming the owner of your own desire rather than being dragged along by the desire of the Other.

3. The data says — promotion does not guarantee happiness

Let us step past the psychoanalysis and look at the numbers.

Seventy-year longitudinal study: ambition correlates with success, not happiness

The Terman Life-Cycle Study, begun in 1921 by Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman and followed for seventy years, comes to a clear conclusion. Ambition correlated with occupational success, but not with happiness, well-being, or longevity. In particular, when achievement fell short of ambition, unhappiness rose sharply (Psychology Today, 2025).

Post-promotion satisfaction is short-lived

A 2024 study in the International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance is more direct. Promotion raises job satisfaction in the short term, but work stress remained elevated even two years later. The researchers’ conclusion: promotion does “not promote career sustainability.”

A floor in the 40s and 50s, and the rise that follows

The U-curve of life satisfaction has been confirmed repeatedly in large-scale studies. The happiness that was high in the 20s bottoms out in the 40s and 50s, then rises again from the 50s onward (PMC, 2020). “The research evidence is very clear that life satisfaction improves in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond.”

If you are at the bottom now, the rebound has already begun.

A structural ceiling: 0.22% foreign managers at Japanese firms

There is a structural reality that cannot be ignored. A 2013 survey of 1,128 Japanese firms (CSR企業総覧) found that the average share of foreign managers was just 0.22%. Only 17 companies had more than ten foreign managers. The largest were Nomura Holdings (158 managers, 3.8% of management) and Nissan (77 managers, 2.9%) (Cabinet Office, 2019).

A 2024 PMC study reached the same conclusion. Even highly skilled foreign workers run into a wall built from “ethnocentric attitudes, outdated HR and management practices, and the organizational dynamics of Japanese corporate culture.”

This is not a lack of personal capability. It is a structural ceiling. Blaming yourself under that ceiling is unfair.

4. Erikson’s midlife task — from “climbing the ladder” to “building the bridge”

In Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, the task of ages 40 to 65 is Generativity vs. Stagnation. The core virtue of this phase is care.

Generativity is “the desire to create and nurture what will outlast the self.” Raising children, mentoring juniors, contributing to society, transferring skills — all of these are expressions of generativity. Conversely, if one becomes absorbed only in the self at this stage, one falls into “dissatisfaction with one’s relative non-productivity — stagnation.”

The data supports this.

  • 91% of employees who were mentored reported job satisfaction (Mentorloop).
  • Mentored employees were 50% more likely to be retained.
  • Adults high in generativity at midlife showed higher positive affect, life satisfaction, and job satisfaction (PMC meta-analysis, 2023).

My son is currently a second-year student in Tokyo University’s Science III stream. Over twenty years of working in Japan, there were times I wondered, “Was this the right call?” When I look at my son’s growth, the answer becomes visible. This is the fruit of generativity. Not the height of the ladder, but the fact that someone is standing on a bridge I helped build.

To borrow a phrase from Erikson scholars:

“Career development in midlife should shift from climbing ladders to building bridges.”

5. The Second Mountain — from ambition to aspiration

In The Second Mountain (2019), the New York Times columnist David Brooks describes life as two mountains.

The first mountain is the résumé virtues. Success, status, achievement. A time of building the skills and talents that the market recognizes. Ambition is the engine that drives the climb upward.

Then the valley arrives. Brooks calls it “the moment of realizing that the first mountain was built on air.” The moment when the promotion does not bring the satisfaction it promised, or the emptiness of achievement settles in, or you find yourself feeling a tangle of emotions in front of a younger colleague’s promotion.

The second mountain is the eulogy virtues. From self-centered to other-centered. Not independence but interdependence. Not victory but dedication. Deep commitment to four things — family, vocation, philosophy, community.

There is a critical distinction.

  • Ambition: the desire to climb higher in the world. It depends on external evaluation.
  • Aspiration: the desire to become a better person. Inner growth, depth of relationship, contribution to others.

According to a 2025 analysis in Psychology Today, “Ambition does not disappear — it transforms into a more existential space, moving away from the evidence of material achievement, toward deepening relationships and using accumulated skill to help others succeed.”

“Building a life and career that fits who you are now — not who you used to be — is the beginning of something more honest.”

The shrinking of ambition in midlife is not decline. It is transformation.

6. Strategic peace — concrete action plan

Once philosophy and psychology have explained the feeling, the next step is to translate it into specific numbers and actions.

Financial stabilization: a more practical safety net than promotion

In Japan, a retired couple’s monthly living costs run ¥287,000 (basic) to ¥380,000 (comfortable). The average employees’ pension (kōsei nenkin) is roughly ¥154,000/month, and the basic national pension is roughly ¥61,000/month. Combined for a couple, that is about ¥215,000, leaving a monthly gap of ¥70,000 to ¥170,000.

Strategies for closing the gap:

  • 35-year mortgage (paid off at age 80): Over 90% of homebuyers in their mid-40s choose a long-term loan of 30 years or more. If the payoff date is clear, it is a plan, not a risk.
  • iDeCo (individual defined contribution pension): Long-term retirement savings with income tax deductions. From 2025, the self-employed monthly cap rises to ¥75,000; from 2027, the upper age limit for entry is set to be raised to under 70.
  • NISA (small-investment tax exemption system): Tax-free investment returns. Annual cap of ¥2.4M (growth) + ¥1.2M (contribution), with a lifetime cap of ¥18M.

The core combination is to maximize tax savings and accumulate long-term in iDeCo, while keeping liquidity in NISA. If a ¥100,000 monthly pension gap can be closed through iDeCo + NISA, the very need for a salary raise via promotion shrinks.

Research shows that financial anxiety triggers “loss of control and a sense of unfairness,” and that job insecurity affects job satisfaction through personal financial health. Said another way: a concrete financial plan reduces psychological dependence on promotion.

Maximizing technical assets: the value of twenty years of experience in the AI era

In an era when AI is beginning to take over the work of junior engineers, the field-built experience of twenty years — incident response, system architecture judgment, business domain knowledge — is a scarcer asset than a leadership title. Titles vanish when you leave the company. Expertise does not.

Practicing generativity

Concrete ways to live out Erikson’s midlife task:

  • Mentoring juniors: 91% job satisfaction, 50% higher retention among the mentored — mentoring also raises the satisfaction of the mentor.
  • Writing a technical blog: Leaving accumulated knowledge in writing is the most scalable form of generativity.
  • Community contribution: Open source participation, internal tech sharing, leading study groups — the act of building bridges instead of climbing ladders.

The value of the “specialist track”

Not every engineer needs to become a manager. Many mature IT organizations run an Individual Contributor (IC) track in parallel to the management track. Contributing through expertise without being tethered to a single company — this is the most strategic choice available beneath a structural ceiling.

7. It’s fine — you are already climbing the second mountain

To sum up.

In Lacanian terms: The sting of a missed promotion is not desire for a title but desire for recognition. To perceive this is itself the process of escaping the desire of the Other and becoming the owner of one’s own desire. This is not immaturity. It is maturity.

In Erikson’s terms: The task of midlife is not to climb the ladder but to build the bridge. Your son’s growth, your juniors’ growth, the technical assets you have left in the community — these are the evidence of generativity. Not stagnation.

In data terms: Terman’s seventy-year longitudinal study says it. Ambition correlates with success but not with happiness. Post-promotion satisfaction fades within two years. After the floor in one’s 40s and 50s, satisfaction rises again. And the 0.22% foreign-manager rate at Japanese firms is a structural ceiling, not your personal failing.

In financial terms: If you have a concrete plan to fill the pension gap with iDeCo and NISA, you do not need to lean on a promotion-based salary increase. When retirement is designed in numbers, the psychological weight of promotion gets lighter.

To borrow David Brooks’ words, the frustration of the first mountain is an invitation to the second. From résumé virtues to eulogy virtues. From ambition to aspiration.

To the you who has spent twenty years writing code, responding to outages, and raising a family in Japan — the absence of a leadership title is not a deficiency. You are already climbing the second mountain.

It’s fine.

References

Appendix: things I left out of the post

This appendix is not for publication. Where the main text focused on the reassurance of “it’s fine” and on reframing, here I deal with the cold-eyed reading of reality and concrete proposals for action that I deliberately left out of the body. Delete before publishing.

A. What the body did not say: the preconditions of “it’s fine”

“It’s fine” does not mean it is fine to do nothing.

Strategic peace is meaningful only when it is an active choice, not passive resignation. For the choice “I will not become a leader” to be a healthy one, you have to look squarely at the consequences of that choice — salary stagnation, the limits of your influence, a smaller voice inside the organization — and prepare for them.

Section 7’s “it’s fine” in the body is sincere, but its premise is that you have internalized the analysis in the other six sections and put the action items below into practice. “It’s fine” without the analysis is just resignation.

B. A cold-eyed view of the company

  • 20 years of service = the danger of sunk cost. The mere fact that you have stayed for twenty years must not become “the reason to stay longer.” Check whether the psychology of “I’ve come this far” is distorting your decisions.

  • Structural change in Japanese IT firms. Nenkō-joretsu (seniority-based pay and promotion) is already collapsing and shifting toward performance-based systems. Inside that transition, the position of a middle-aged foreign engineer can grow increasingly unstable. “It has been fine so far, so it will be fine going forward” is a dangerous assumption.

  • “The company needs me” vs. actual replaceability. Audit the gap between the two honestly. Twenty years of domain knowledge is an asset, but if it is not documented, it is also a risk from the company’s point of view. Risks become targets for removal.

  • The need for a Plan B. If you had to leave the company today, where would you go and what would you do? If you cannot answer that concretely, then “I will not become a leader” is not freedom — it is confinement.

C. The trap of the “specialist track”

Section 6 of the body mentioned the possibility of an IC (Individual Contributor) track, but there is a cold-eyed reality.

  • There are companies where an IC track formally exists and companies where it does not. If there is no formal IC track at your current company, you need to check whether “I will stay as a specialist” is substantively distinguishable from “I will maintain the status quo.”

  • It is dangerous if your “specialist” identity only holds inside the company. If the company disappears, your department changes, or the tech stack pivots, your expertise vanishes with it.

  • You have to build expertise that is recognized outside the company as well. Open-source contributions, a technical blog, conference talks, community activity — these are the foundations of a specialist identity that is not tied to the company.

D. Concrete action items

A sharper version of the “starting next Monday” list from section 6.

1. Market-value check

Once a year, verify your value on the job market. You do not have to go all the way to interviews. Talking with a recruiter, reading JDs (Job Descriptions), getting a feel for how your skill set is evaluated by the market — that is enough. Confirming that you can leave is what makes the choice to stay healthy.

2. Putting the English asset to work

Korean + Japanese + English. That combination is an asset that gives you access to a much wider market than the Japanese domestic one. Global remote roles, foreign-capital (gaishikei) firms, the Korea–Japan bridge role — if you are not playing this card, it’s a waste.

3. Severance (taishoku-kin) simulation

With 20 years of service, severance can be substantial. Calculate the precise amount and tax (退職所得控除: for service over 20 years, ¥700,000 × (years of service − 20) + ¥8,000,000) in advance. Knowing the concrete number gives you the psychological freedom of “I can leave.” Not knowing the number lets vague anxiety pin your feet down.

4. Side work / side projects

Blog, tech consulting, teaching, translation — build income streams that do not depend 100% on the company’s salary. What matters is not the size of the amount but the experience of “I can create value outside the company.” This blog post itself can be the first step.

5. Health

Age 51. If you mean to work for another 15 years, health is your capital. Exercise, sleep, regular checkups — this is the highest-ROI investment. It ranks above promotion, above iDeCo, above side projects. If the body breaks, everything else loses meaning.

E. About my son

Tokyo University, Science III stream (the path to the medical faculty). This is a magnificent fruit of generativity.

But there are two things to look at coldly.

First, finances. The medical faculty is six years. Tuition pressure is real. Check that your financial plan over that period is compatible with the iDeCo/NISA strategy in section 5 of the body.

Second, the projection of identity. Use your son’s success as evidence of your own generativity, but do not project your identity too heavily onto his achievements. Erikson’s generativity is devotion for the next generation, not achievement through (or vicariously via) the next generation.

Your son doing well is a thing to celebrate — not a tool to offset your own career anxiety.

F. About this blog post itself

This is the most personal piece you have ever written. It took courage to put twenty years of career, the emotions of midlife, and family on the page.

It will comfort people in the same situation. But the real value of this post is not in readers’ reactions — it is in what you yourself sorted out in the process of writing it.

After publication, do not let yourself be jerked around by responses. Page views, likes, comments — if your heart is moved by these, that is exactly the “desire of the Other” Lacan was pointing at. Remember why you wrote this. You wrote it not for the recognition of the Other but to understand the structure of your own desire.

Publish checklist: Delete this appendix (## A through ## F) before publication. The public scope is everything down to and including the “References” section beneath the --- rule in the body.