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Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise

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Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise

#151

Post by PaulKeeble »

thisisit wrote: post #144
sage76 wrote: post #110

At a unicorn I was working at, MBAs were being hired to be engineering managers. I did not see a single engineer promoted to management, it was mostly all MBAs. The few I had direct contact were really useless at helping engineers out, all I ever heard from them was "Just get it done.". If I asked for help, they'd say "Well who else is gonna do it then?". I felt demoralised and lost some of my confidence. But the com…

While I can't speak for what happened at this company. I think the problem is not "MBAs or engineers being managers" rather them not being good listeners. And that is the point the HBR article is also missing. In my previous job, I had manager (ex-engineer) who would often say - "I don't even understand what are you talking about". But he would always listen patiently to us and even spend some of his personal time af…

That clearly isn't an example of a manager with deep technical expertise, its a poor engineer who has been promoted and is faking it. By the measures in the study he would not have counted as a deep knowledge engineer.

Just because he was an engineer doesn't mean he has any deep skills.

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise

#152

Post by sage76 »

arcanus wrote: post #122
johnbellone wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been lucky in my career to become an engineering leader/manager without having to go and get an MBA. But I still have the same concerns for continuing the climb up that proverbial ladder: what if I want to become the head of a large department? what if I want to become a CTO? The raw truth of the matter is that it seems that having an MBA is likely the same litmus test as having a B.S. in computer science. Per…

Get the doctorate. Don't feed the trend if you don't want it to grow.

The MBA would probably be cheaper and definitely less of a commitment, especially an executive MBA.

Te reverse this trend, engineers really need to look at management as an important function. I don't see lawyers and doctors doing MBAs to move into management positions, but somehow, many engineers have this tendency of looking askance at management. That leaves the field open for outsiders to swoop in.

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise

#153

Post by ZenoArrow »

edblarney wrote: post #73

Missing from this study is the fact that we tend to project confidence, intelligence and wisdom on those that we like. A staffers perception of the competence of their boss may mostly be a function of how much they like their boss. Also - staffers may have no ability to judge the competence of a boss. Example: boss is highly technical, nice, gives you good feedback, stays 'out of your hair' - and 'let's you do your j…

>"staffers may have no ability to judge the competence of a boss"

They often do. The biggest indicator is one you touched on... 'let's you do your job'. A good manager sets clear but fair expectations, and then works to shield you from roadblocks so you can get the job done as promptly as possible. In my experience it's easy to see this in action.

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise

#154

Post by shanusmagnus »

acchow wrote: post #141
codemac wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked outside of SV, I saw the same thing. Several engineers went off to schools nearby to get MBAs just so their careers could improve. Once in SV though... I rarely see this. When you get an MBA, it's a huge signal to an employer that you accomplished something, and no amount of bad management can ignore that you were issued an MBA. I think job hopping in SV can accomplish the same type of signal.

> When you get an MBA, it's a huge signal to an employer that you accomplished something What?

Receiving an MBA.

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise

#155

Post by saosebastiao »

Amazon still has pockets of very deep expertise with highly technical leaders that make for very productive and profitable teams. I've personally worked with some OR and Economics teams that consistently deliver exceptional results for the bottom line. And I know that many of Amazon's best businesses have come (originally) from organizations like these: AWS, Kindle, Echo, etc.

But it very quickly is moving away from that idea and toward a world in which MBAs with half baked ideas that don't pass basic sanity checks are allowed to commit to impossible (P=NP!) ideas on behalf of their teams. And it destroys morale: nobody wants to work on a project that is known from the start to be impossible to deliver as specced. So they churn out.

And when you talk to the goon that is in charge of it all, the problem always magically seems to be that they can't hire fast enough.

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise

#156

Post by sshrinivasan »

Considering this is HN, I'll stick to the software/hardware field. While there is some truth to this, I disagree with the assertion that in order for a manager to be good, he "should be able to do your job". I fully agree that a manager for a technical team should have a technical background, and more specifically in the same broad field as the employee. Taking my own case, I am a scientific software developer, with lots of experience in Python, C etc. But as a manager of a team of software developers in different fields, I have no clue how to do web application development or devopsy type stuff, JavaScript, Kubernetes, Go and the like, which we use as well. However I hope I can still be a good manager because I understand the process of software development, I understand people and their needs (technical needs, motivational needs, professional development needs etc), and I can recognize good people when I see them, who can be leaders in their respective technical roles and mentors to others.

Or maybe I suck at my job and I don't know it!

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise

#157

Post by rplst8 »

sage76 wrote: post #152
arcanus wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get the doctorate. Don't feed the trend if you don't want it to grow.

The MBA would probably be cheaper and definitely less of a commitment, especially an executive MBA. Te reverse this trend, engineers really need to look at management as an important function. I don't see lawyers and doctors doing MBAs to move into management positions, but somehow, many engineers have this tendency of looking askance at management. That leaves the field open for outsiders to swoop in.

I think the aversion that most engineers have to management, is that software development is already a very nebulous beast. Actually delivering a solution that is called a "success" is often a slippery moving target. Being the one who is responsible for the project's success is even scarier.

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise

#159

Post by oculusthrift »

sage76 wrote: post #110

At a unicorn I was working at, MBAs were being hired to be engineering managers. I did not see a single engineer promoted to management, it was mostly all MBAs. The few I had direct contact were really useless at helping engineers out, all I ever heard from them was "Just get it done.". If I asked for help, they'd say "Well who else is gonna do it then?". I felt demoralised and lost some of my confidence. But the com…

If you watch Noam Chomsky's 'Requiem for the American Dream' on Netflix it talks about how the heads of all these companies used to be engineers but at some point all the finance/MBA type of people started dominating these positions. This also happened in Washington and now essentially the whole world is owned/run by Finance/MBA types who focus on short term earnings instead of value creation.

Re: Employees are happier when led by people with deep expertise

#160

Post by battlebot »

sage76 wrote: post #110

At a unicorn I was working at, MBAs were being hired to be engineering managers. I did not see a single engineer promoted to management, it was mostly all MBAs. The few I had direct contact were really useless at helping engineers out, all I ever heard from them was "Just get it done.". If I asked for help, they'd say "Well who else is gonna do it then?". I felt demoralised and lost some of my confidence. But the com…

MBAs are mostly worthless people that get churned out of business schools and have no ability for independent thought. What did you expect?
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