A non-managerial role*

If you're a senior IC and you're not exhibiting leadership in some way you're probably not going to be around for very long.

You're right, that's what it usually means. But gp was asking about it in the context of this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21377401

Here it's being used to contrast with both TL-ship and management.

I agree with this and thus often find the term "IC" itself unfortunately prone to being misleading.

Ah, okay, thank you.