71–80 of 80 posts
Nepotism.
Except that many managers are hired externally.
A lot of people will hire people from their college networks or whatever it may be. If they're hiring managers blindly based on some alleged track record, then they're just downright incompetent or taking a risk that has low odds of working well for the team :)
Now tell them that they will not be able to code anymore and, intead, that they will have to deal with other developers' problems.
You need to offer a good raise for that.
Top-notch technicians (programmers) often get paid more than their managers.
True story.
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>>Another reason is that managers are multipliers. There is no any such reason. Current day managerial jobs descend directly from days of feudalism and aristocracy. Where the master had to be richer than the slaves to enforce his rule over the serfs. All the best having a underpaid manager exercising control over overpaid ICs, it doesn't start, let alone work well. In short this is social sanction. The reality is any…
Your answer is contradictory: managers are not in any way multipliers, but they must be paid more because pyramid? Also, your cynical view completely breaks down for knowledge work; you can't simply stand over a room of programmers cracking a whip and expect anything to improve. Maybe you've experienced that, but that's not what skilled managers in productive tech companies are paid to do.
It was the same in the court of Julius Caesar its the same in Google.
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It's hard to imagine a manager making people do 2x as much. But it's not so hard to imagine a manager making people work on something 2x as important.
Making your reports 2x as productive is far more expansive (and less visible) than just ensuring they're working on stuff 2x as important or doing 2x as much work. Think of software for a moment. Has there every been a library, language, framework, etc that you absolutely love to use? The API is just right, the framework is the perfect level of opinionated vs. not opinionated, it just gets out of your way and lets yo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your answer is contradictory: managers are not in any way multipliers, but they must be paid more because pyramid? Also, your cynical view completely breaks down for knowledge work; you can't simply stand over a room of programmers cracking a whip and expect anything to improve. Maybe you've experienced that, but that's not what skilled managers in productive tech companies are paid to do.
Please, human beings are the same regardless where and when they they have been working. It was the same in the court of Julius Caesar its the same in Google.
Having said that, Google is not your typical company. I know managers in Google who push thousands of lines of code per week and are often more productive and more hand-on than the engineers that report to them. In such cases, it is only fair that they earn more than the engineers.
I agree with dasil003 that your cynical view breaks down in productive technology companies. Maybe that's what you have experiened but the places I have worked at had no resemblance with the court of Julius Caesar and the managers were definitely not mere email routers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's hard to imagine a manager making people do 2x as much. But it's not so hard to imagine a manager making people work on something 2x as important.
Making your reports 2x as productive is far more expansive (and less visible) than just ensuring they're working on stuff 2x as important or doing 2x as much work. Think of software for a moment. Has there every been a library, language, framework, etc that you absolutely love to use? The API is just right, the framework is the perfect level of opinionated vs. not opinionated, it just gets out of your way and lets yo…
I think of managing as keeping a bunch of freight trains from smashing into one another. The manager can't claim to be making things move twice as fast, and it's hard to recognize the absence of disaster as a contribution. But if the managing were going poorly, everyone would be far worse off.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making your reports 2x as productive is far more expansive (and less visible) than just ensuring they're working on stuff 2x as important or doing 2x as much work. Think of software for a moment. Has there every been a library, language, framework, etc that you absolutely love to use? The API is just right, the framework is the perfect level of opinionated vs. not opinionated, it just gets out of your way and lets yo…
Yeah, you nailed it. I think of managing as keeping a bunch of freight trains from smashing into one another. The manager can't claim to be making things move twice as fast, and it's hard to recognize the absence of disaster as a contribution. But if the managing were going poorly, everyone would be far worse off.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making your reports 2x as productive is far more expansive (and less visible) than just ensuring they're working on stuff 2x as important or doing 2x as much work. Think of software for a moment. Has there every been a library, language, framework, etc that you absolutely love to use? The API is just right, the framework is the perfect level of opinionated vs. not opinionated, it just gets out of your way and lets yo…
A 2x manager can help by shielding the team from corporate bullshit, and clearing obstacles that make it difficult for them to do their job.
The devil is in the details. Does the 10x engineer accomplish that by pairing, code reviews, architectural leadership, refactoring, mentorship, improving team tooling and build processes, or just doing all the work themselves? The answe is any and potentially all of the above, as whatever the situation dictates. The 10x engineer is seen as 10x because they have a good sense of situational awareness and capacity to adapt both strategically and tactically as needed, which compounds itself to become an incredible source of productivity.
The same is true for a 2x manager shielding the team from corporate bullshit and clearing obstacles. Those are end goals, but there are countless paths to take to get to those goals, not all of which will lead you there. A 2x manager is able to suss out the fine line required to balance team needs against organizational forces in such a way that they'll have the policital capital[1] required to be a good steward/advocate of their team while also having their team seen as a productive asset of the company in order to accrue that political capital. Something which is ridiculously more difficult than it needs to be, if you're attempting to do so in a way that's sustainable continuously and not just a short term play that'll rebound later on.
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A 2x manager can help by shielding the team from corporate bullshit, and clearing obstacles that make it difficult for them to do their job.
That's not wrong, but it's roughly equivalent to saying a 10x engineer can help by unblocking other engineers on their team. The devil is in the details. Does the 10x engineer accomplish that by pairing, code reviews, architectural leadership, refactoring, mentorship, improving team tooling and build processes, or just doing all the work themselves? The answe is any and potentially all of the above, as whatever the s…