Ask HN: Why do managers tend to make more money than engineers?

Don't get too caught up on which job role has more risk, responsibility, or communication skills.

Salaries are apportioned based on how close a job role is to the company's revenue stream. Executives come out on top because they control the money and payscales. Sales is often second because they can very easily point to new revenues and say "I brought that in". Profit center staff (most Valley engineers) would be somewhere up there because they are at least creating the actual product that the business sells. Support staff - cleaning, office managers, accounting - bring up the rear because they have the hardest time claiming responsibility for a share of the pie.

Within each of those groups you'll see normal salary dynamics based on wider market forces and hierarchy. Engineering manager's gonna make more than most of the line engineers. Comptroller will probably make more than a line engineer too even if she's considered a cost center because she's in a position of relative authority and individual responsibility.

Study questions:

- How close are you to the money?

- How legible are your contributions to the bottom line?

- Could you get significantly more elsewhere for the same role?

- Is management incentivized to retain top-shelf people for your job role?

Having been in the industry for 15 years, and having been both a hard developer and an engineering manager, my two cents: 1- managing a team of engineers WELL is really hard, and requires a broad range of skills. Granted, there are a lot of bad managers out there, particularly in engineering. 2- managers aren't getting paid for their productivity, or even their time. They are getting paid for judgment and accountability. They are accountable for the output of a whole team, and they can only indirectly influence productivity of each engineer. 3- I can say this because I'm an engineer- lots of engineers (in fact, many of the best ones) are immature and stubborn. That hurts teams, hurts feelings, and inhibits productivity. Don't underestimate the difficulty in keeping things running smoothly on interpersonal issues.

To the above points, I was a manager for 4 years. My team members said I did a good job. Yet, after sweating in that position for that amount of time, I gladly took a 30% pay cut to be an individual contributor again.

People skills.

A good manager is able to negotiate much more comfortably than your average engineer, and they are able to apply this to their salary negotiations as easily as they can to a feature list.

Another contributing factor is that the upper management is also well versed with people skills, and so they are more likely to get along with, and are more willing to compensate people they get along with better.

The really good ones also act as productivity multipliers for those who they manage, giving them leverage and visibility.

Who is more useful, the guy who is capable of doing stuff, or the guy who is capable of talking other guys into doing stuff? Let's face it: Social engineering may not be particularly visionary and idealistic, but making other people do what you want is all you really need to get things done.

I'm surprised at how passive aggressive some of these answers sound. I imagine many of you have worked some poor managers who weren't very good at their job. That will make you question why they deserve to get paid so much. For the record, as a manager I've had staff members make as much as I have.

I believe a (good) manager gets paid a lot because they make their team more productive, focused, and happy. a good manager will... Increase the productivity and output from the team. She makes sure that each person has the tools and resources to do their job effectively. She ensures that roadblocks are moved out of the way and not a distraction. She mentors the team and helps identify projects that help improve their skills and peaks their interests. She sets a vision the team can rally behind and adjusts that plan and pitch as needed. Shes brings experience and prospective that no one else on the team has had. She hired an all-star team and fires the deadwood. She's the shit umbrella who protects the team from the rest of the company.

Hiring a good manager is hard work. It's even harder to promote within without the right training structure. One of the problems with management is many of us are self taught. Bad managers can often breed more bad managers. But a great manager can be worth every penny.