This is absurd. The author misrepresents the type of "abstraction" that people mean. This abstraction ladder goes as follows:
- contributing individually
- contributing as a tech lead
- contributing as a technical manager
- leaving the occupation to open a vanity business, such as a gastropub or horse shoeing service
Abstraction has a specific meaning in computer programming. I don't think he's misrepresenting it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction_(computer_science)