ICs aren't just computer programmers, they're designers, sales, marketing, customer support, etc. It's just an easier term for people who aren't managers than "not a manager".

Is IC offensive? I’ve never considered it to be. “Resources”, on the other hand, feels very offensive.

Well, taken at face value, it is a bit of an oxymoron. To contribute is to be part of a group; by definition, a contributor can't be wholly independent, because they're adding to a corpus, not producing it by themselves.

Oh, I take it the other way. To me it implies that management doesn’t contribute anything on their own, which is kind of true but also kind of a funny phrasing.

It stands for Individual Contributor, not Independent Contributor.

I don't read it negatively, but to play devil's advocate here... Managers are also individuals who are contributing to the group corpus. They just do it by interfacing with people instead of code.

Though, that's just semantics on the naming. IC just means not having direct reports.

True. Who is not an individual contributor? I find the term meaningless.

I've heard the term (or "individual contributor") since at least the first dotcom boom in the late 90s.

It's been in use in engineering for decades now. My father was familiar with the term in his career, and he's pre-boomer.