Ask HN: 20% of LinkedIn's recent layoffs were managers

Post by baby » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:35 AM UTC

monkeydreams wrote: post #135

onethought wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This scenario actually looks completely logical. Are you saying this is a stupid way to think or you agree?

I have 10 direct reports across 2 teams, with responsibility for a number of actual deliverable work pieces external to these staff. 10 direct reports is about half a week's work at a bare minimum without development, process improvement, etc. 20 is insane and would lead to skill atrophy and team dissatisfaction in short order.

Post by baby » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:37 AM UTC

lovich wrote: post #113

greatpostman wrote: post #11

I have a long held belief that engineering managers are mostly a scam, and are actually just overpaid scrum masters. This is from working at some top companies

Bruh, I don't know where you've been but "Engineering Manager" positions are the new "Devops" from 10 years ago in terms of needing to do multiple jobs. Every position I've both applied for and gotten has required that I can -Complete technical tasks at the minimum of a senior engineer level if not staff/principal -Train the -Project Management -System Design, to the point that I am willing to put my name on each and…

Post by paganel » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:38 AM UTC

moneycantbuy wrote: post #32

firing entire levels of middle management seems to be a fashion these days, but from experience in my org it has been counterproductive. my current manager now has >60 direct reports so can’t even find the time to handle each of our basic hr tasks, let alone provide any leadership. in theory i can see the board salivating to pretend they are elon but in practice it’s a dysfunctional nightmare. plus it’s bad for ic mo…

Post by dilyevsky » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:40 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #86

betaby wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Parent comment is about 4:1 even. In my career I saw from 5:1 to 20:1 IC to managers on a direct level. However the higher one go the better the ratio, like VP to SVP ratio rarely reaches 10:1 even. Now I'm curious what are the industry 'standard' numbers.

> In my career I saw from 5:1 to 20:1 IC to managers on a direct level. I was once put in charge of over 20 direct reports against my wishes. At that ratio, you’re not really managing the team in a traditional sense. You’re providing high level direction and dealing with the individual issues that are most pressing. It invariably becomes a situation where there are team leads acting as pseudo-managers for groups of t…

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:41 AM UTC

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #109

darth_avocado wrote: post #5

Typical ratio of people to managers in a company is about 1:4, so that tracks. And before this becomes controversial, I don’t mean every manager has 4 reports, but because organization is a tree, for every 4 ICs, there’s one manager. For example, you could have 3PMs, 3 designers and 10 engineers, but the org could have 4 managers: 1 PM manager, 1 Design manager, 1 eng manager with 7 reportees and a sr manager with 3…

> Typical ratio of people to managers in a company is about 1:4, so that tracks. Over the last 10 years, we have improved productivity tools, and for every other role the expectations are higher. I find it funny that the ratio of ICs:Managers has not gone up and the industry doesn't discuss that it should go up or what tools we need to help make it grow.