If you're developer (Senior or Lead Developer) and you'd rather stay with code/design than pursue a management career, what are the available career paths at your company, or any you've heard of? How far can you go?

Is it possible to continue being a geek until you bite the dust or is that too naive?

Are people like Uncle Bob for example still considered developers, as they claim?

I am going to go out on a limb here and say something that is not likely to be the answer you want to hear, but if you don't like management, your career path is going to be very limited. If what you like to do is code, and if you are really good at it, and you don't want to stop, then your career path is on a single trajectory: software engineer and then senior software engineer. 

If others recognize how good you are then their inclination will tend towards putting you in a position where you can transmit your experience to others. In other words, they will want you to manage and/or direct. It is hard to take on that added responsibility without taking on some form of management. If you are an architect and responsible for a system's design, and if you want that design to be successfully implemented, you will need to lead and manage others. If you become a founder of a start-up and you become successful, then chances are at some point you will need to hire someone to help, and then you will need to manage them. If you become a CTO then there is no way in hell you will be able to not manage.

That being said, I don't think this question can be answered without understanding what it is about management you don't like. Do you not like managing personnel? Do you not like the idea of coding not being your primary responsibility? Do you not like the burden of responsibility for something's success? 

The answer to that underlying question will help point you in the right direction. Or to put in another way, a way we should all be thinking about the work we do, is this: what does your ideal job look like? Forget about titles for a second, forget about the company you work for, just focus on your day-to-day life, and those things that will make you truly happy and thrive. Then work to create that position at the place you work, or at a company you build yourself. 
