> probably not top 5-10%, because they also cared about the non-technical requirements that a good manager needs to cover It sounds like you're saying that top-tier engineers are not generally qualified in terms of non-technical requirements, and I don't know that this assertion is justified. From my perspective, as a relatively new technical manager who also spent years as an engineer working with technical managers…
Very often when folks describe the ideal manager, they are describing themselves.
To be honest, I would love to work for a place that implements self management even half hartedly. My understanding is that Valve is like that. Valve may not make things on the schedule that people want them to - but no one can deny that their quality is supreme.
The boss "should" be able to do most of your job BUT they Should not need/want to. Good bosses understand the word "delegation" and that is what it takes to build a real team and company. I am a boss and I can do most of my team's work (whether efficient or not) but I don't want to because I have higher priority things to do to get the most out of my time. For example, I can code but I don't (well mostly). I have a t…
Is your work really higher priority or is it just your job?
The boss "should" be able to do most of your job BUT they Should not need/want to. Good bosses understand the word "delegation" and that is what it takes to build a real team and company. I am a boss and I can do most of my team's work (whether efficient or not) but I don't want to because I have higher priority things to do to get the most out of my time. For example, I can code but I don't (well mostly). I have a t…
> For example, I can code
Not saying that this is true in your case but I have seen this too often that managers think they can code just because they did it 10 years ago. It's surprisingly hard to write good code when you are not in practice.
Personally, I would never work for a manager that had no skills other than "management" skills. I've been in a few organizations where every manager is hired from the outside and installed and they have no expertise in the area or the product itself. I've quit those companies quickly.
This ... it is a total fantasy to think that the leader(s) of a company are somehow aware of all of the work that is entailed by every job in the company. For really small companies, or junior employees with a line manager, that may be true. But as you said, the more senior you become, things completely change. There isn't a CEO in the world that could do all of the jobs they hire other executives to do (finance, sal…
> There isn't a CEO in the world that could do all of the jobs they hire other executives to do (finance, sales, tax/accounting, HR, marketing, technology, operations, legal). It's impossible. Impossible, yet accomplished by thousands and thousands of small business owners every month.
> Impossible, yet accomplished by thousands and thousands of small business owners every month.
It's an appealing thought, but really they are doing a different job. Vast majority of those thousands of small business owners couldn't effectively step into one of those roles at even a mid-sized corp, let alone all of them.
When the work is managed well there's never need for escalations, defusing, death marches and therapy.
But I think the parent comment's point is that this can be a very challenging job. A good manager's task is to absorb the chaos of the outside world, and give the team a calm, structured workflow. It's easy to see where a manager is failing, but if they're doing their job right their work is invisible.
What is creating the chaos outside the "developer bubble"? Is progress well managed, or not.
So we reward visible work. The higher flames in Ops the better, to not be invisible.
The more junior you are, the more likely it is that not only can your boss do your job, they can do it better than you can. The more senior you become, the less likely that is to be the case. How many CEOs could do all of the CFO, COO, CTO, and General Counsel's jobs? Zero. How many programming team leads can do the junior programmer's job? Basically/hopefully all of them.
How many programming team managers can do the programmer's job?
In my experience, often, not many. And it is usually a recipe for disaster.
The more junior you are, the more likely it is that not only can your boss do your job, they can do it better than you can. The more senior you become, the less likely that is to be the case. How many CEOs could do all of the CFO, COO, CTO, and General Counsel's jobs? Zero. How many programming team leads can do the junior programmer's job? Basically/hopefully all of them.
I think the point is not "your boss should be able to do your job better than you can", but "in a pinch, your boss would be able to step in and fill your role if needed". Even in the case you gave, a good CEO might be able to do that. When you are at the C level, whatever the role is, you're probably going to mostly have to be good at stakeholder management, strategic thinking, listening to your peers and the people…
Technically, it means "your boss should be able to make decisions based on an informed understanding of what the work entails." Without that, management decisions are going to be based on who plays golf with whom, or most shiny consultant or marketer who crosses the threshold.
I've spent some time employed by organizations whose decisions are disconnected from day-to-day reality; train wrecks are fun to watch, but they get less fun when it's your job to ride the train into the brick wall.
The more junior you are, the more likely it is that not only can your boss do your job, they can do it better than you can. The more senior you become, the less likely that is to be the case. How many CEOs could do all of the CFO, COO, CTO, and General Counsel's jobs? Zero. How many programming team leads can do the junior programmer's job? Basically/hopefully all of them.
This is not at all my experience (except CFO which has responsibilities not only on paper but in real life, where blame can’t be transferred) but I’m willing to chalk it up to culture differences. Basically the more you see yourself as a “manager that facilitate work” the easier it is to go higher and the less expertise you need (social expertise exempted). Need something done? Hire someone to do it! Is there a speci…
"This suggests that received wisdom about what makes a good boss may need some rethinking. It’s not uncommon to hear people assert that it’s a bad idea to promote an engineer to lead other engineers, or an editor to lead other editors. A good manager doesn’t need technical expertise, this argument goes, but rather, a mix of qualities like charisma, organizational skills, and emotional intelligence. Those qualities do matter, but what our research suggests is that the oft-overlooked quality of having technical expertise also matters enormously. ... Using these three measures of supervisor competence, we found that employees are far happier when they are led by people with deep expertise in the core activity of the business."
> The reality is that people who achieve in one area are more likely to achieve in others. Aptitude is in general going to be either uncorrelated or positively correlated across different areas, but time invested is going to be negatively correlated. Hence the stereotype of nerds with poor social skills: building social skills takes time and effort, and time and effort spent on building those skills is time and effor…
Yes, you make some good points here but I would argue that in most organizations that skills that make for effective engineering are aligned well with those required for managing. At a certain point, reinvesting into programming ability sees diminishing returns and ROI on e.g. mentorship, task planning and delegation out-paces improvement in technical skills dramatically. Of course, this is not universal and there ar…
It's fun to be a "star player" developer, but in terms of maximizing your own individual potential, you're always going to be able to produce more value by leading people than by your own output alone.
There are some technical mountains to climb which require superlative engineering talent, but in terms of impact it's hard to compete with a leader who is able to coalesce a team or organization effectively towards a single goal.