>If you can get referred, sure, do that. Why should that be a requirement to build a "real career" with "real progression" though? (And what does that even mean?)
It means moving away from being a shit-kicker coder to a more senior position at a fast pace. And eventually on to upper management.
If you ever want to reach upper-management, you basically have two choices: A) You work from the ground up _at the same company, forever_, or B) You work at various companies, developing a network and getting recommended into higher positions from your networks.
But you can have a "real career" without ending in management. In the Bay Area you can make absurd amounts of money as individual contributor. Not C-level of absurd, but high enough to be fine with earning less but enjoying your work more—money is only a means to an end, after all.
Also, the only way I'd be interested in going into upper management would be as technical co-founder, which requires neither grinding levels nor job-hopping.
Overall I think you're being a bit too reductive about what a "real career" means.
What if you don't ever want to reach upper-management, or management at all?
My skills are firmly technical, I don't have the desire nor the skillset for management. I'm just starting my career in software engineering, is there nowhere to go upward except management?
It means moving away from being a shit-kicker coder to a more senior position at a fast pace. And eventually on to upper management.
If you ever want to reach upper-management, you basically have two choices: A) You work from the ground up _at the same company, forever_, or B) You work at various companies, developing a network and getting recommended into higher positions from your networks.