It's a tradeoff. I've been working on the front lines most of my career and it has lead to some amazing growth and achievements, but now that I've got children and want to spend more time with them I'm perfectly fine being in a cost center and staying out of the critical path. It does take some savvy to get visibility for your work but nothing a seasoned engineer couldn't handle.
What I mean by critical path is that the business or product will fail immediately if you don't do your job. That's certainly not the case with the "back office" sort of work that I currently do.
