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Reasons Not to Be a Manager (2019)

charity.wtf

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Re: Reasons Not to Be a Manager (2019)

#11

Post by thenerdhead »

> And also, the people who excel at all those management tasks, the ICs who would actually make great managers but don't want to do it? They make the best ICs. Literally a dream. They make my job so much easier in so many ways. Wouldn't trade them.

Ah the cliche Steve Jobs quote. Any driven person who wants to make change at an organization knows that they have to become a manager to scale. These are all day-to-day reasons that distract from why people get into the role in the first place.

Re: Reasons Not to Be a Manager (2019)

#12

Post by havblue »

The fact that management doesn't directly do the work is definitely a problem. They're ultimately recycling other people's opinions to evaluate performance, perpetually out of the loop, yet they still have to be the bad guy if a project is behind schedule or there are performance problems. They are also in trouble when it comes to actually helping people finish problems: aside from buying licenses or equipment, all they can do is say, "go ask this person".

Re: Reasons Not to Be a Manager (2019)

#13

Post by marcinzm »

As I see there is an advantage for managers in terms of rising up the corporate ranks. Management titles form a strict hierarchy. So if your company grow from 10 engineer to 100 engineers then someone needs to be a Director because you "can't" have EMs report to other EMs. You can, however, have a Senior Engineer be a tech lead or help provide broader architectural plans.

Re: Reasons Not to Be a Manager (2019)

#14

Post by gochi »

pixelatedindex wrote: post #8

I don’t know about the part where Charity mentions it’s really really easy to get an Eng job than a manager one. As someone who got laid off recently, it sure as heck doesn’t feel that way. And the skills not being transferrable? How is being good in a particular field of tech _more_ transferable than management skills, which is arguably needed everywhere be it tech or not. Finally the credit/blame - managers and peo…

>How is being good in a particular field of tech _more_ transferable than management skills, which is arguably needed everywhere be it tech or not.

Managers are viewed the same way engineers are when it comes to skill transfer, in that their "expertise" is limited to the field. Which is why it's rare to find managers who made leaps that way across fields, as they always get overlooked in favor of someone who's either already in the field or is ok with switching from a technical role into a managerial one.

Re: Reasons Not to Be a Manager (2019)

#15

Post by youngtaff »

pixelatedindex wrote: post #8

I don’t know about the part where Charity mentions it’s really really easy to get an Eng job than a manager one. As someone who got laid off recently, it sure as heck doesn’t feel that way. And the skills not being transferrable? How is being good in a particular field of tech _more_ transferable than management skills, which is arguably needed everywhere be it tech or not. Finally the credit/blame - managers and peo…

> he mentions

Charity is not a man!

Re: Reasons Not to Be a Manager (2019)

#16

Post by jddj »

pixelatedindex wrote: post #8

I don’t know about the part where Charity mentions it’s really really easy to get an Eng job than a manager one. As someone who got laid off recently, it sure as heck doesn’t feel that way. And the skills not being transferrable? How is being good in a particular field of tech _more_ transferable than management skills, which is arguably needed everywhere be it tech or not. Finally the credit/blame - managers and peo…

Anecdata, but I've found it much easier to replace managers compared with engineers.

Measured qualitatively in terms of 6 months performance

Re: Reasons Not to Be a Manager (2019)

#17

Post by marcinzm »

jddj wrote: post #16
pixelatedindex wrote: post #8

I don’t know about the part where Charity mentions it’s really really easy to get an Eng job than a manager one. As someone who got laid off recently, it sure as heck doesn’t feel that way. And the skills not being transferrable? How is being good in a particular field of tech _more_ transferable than management skills, which is arguably needed everywhere be it tech or not. Finally the credit/blame - managers and peo…

Anecdata, but I've found it much easier to replace managers compared with engineers. Measured qualitatively in terms of 6 months performance

The single fastest hire my department did recently was for an EM position. Took something like under two weeks from opening the position to signed offer. No one had ever seen anything like it before.

Re: Reasons Not to Be a Manager (2019)

#18

Post by jnwatson »

thenerdhead wrote: post #11

> And also, the people who excel at all those management tasks, the ICs who would actually make great managers but don't want to do it? They make the best ICs. Literally a dream. They make my job so much easier in so many ways. Wouldn't trade them. Ah the cliche Steve Jobs quote. Any driven person who wants to make change at an organization knows that they have to become a manager to scale. These are all day-to-day r…

At the current FAANG I work for, managers are so consumed by organizational overhead that there’s plenty of room for IC (ie staff engineer) to influence direction.

Not sure if this applies at the VP level.

Re: Reasons Not to Be a Manager (2019)

#19

Post by pixelatedindex »

youngtaff wrote: post #15
pixelatedindex wrote: post #8

I don’t know about the part where Charity mentions it’s really really easy to get an Eng job than a manager one. As someone who got laid off recently, it sure as heck doesn’t feel that way. And the skills not being transferrable? How is being good in a particular field of tech _more_ transferable than management skills, which is arguably needed everywhere be it tech or not. Finally the credit/blame - managers and peo…

> he mentions Charity is not a man!

My apologies, an implicit bias is showing. Updated!

Re: Reasons Not to Be a Manager (2019)

#20

Post by Zetice »

havblue wrote: post #12

The fact that management doesn't directly do the work is definitely a problem. They're ultimately recycling other people's opinions to evaluate performance, perpetually out of the loop, yet they still have to be the bad guy if a project is behind schedule or there are performance problems. They are also in trouble when it comes to actually helping people finish problems: aside from buying licenses or equipment, all t…

This view takes for granted the effort required to figure out who should do what and when.
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