I can't believe how many people claim to have years of experience but are completely unfamiliar with terms like "binary", "library", "compiler", and "filesystem".
How do you expect to convince the interviewer that your solution was correct without tests? How can you debug your code properly if you end up with a spaghetti mess instead of using a clean design?
They're parallel in theory and get paid the same, but if you look at the ratio of high-level managers to high level ICs, climbing the management ladder is clearly easier.
I don't think Starcraft players are great examples. Many of the most successful ones walked the "Royal Road," i.e. they won the OSL on their first try. I can't think of any player who was mediocre for years, and then became an all-time great. If anything, every Starcraft legend except Flash had a front-loaded career where they had the majority of their big wins at the start of their career, and then stuck around due to their brand name without ever recapturing their peak.