4 ms·

tl;dr: If there's no reason to get an MBA as a promotion-track engineer, then not only will none of your promoted engineers will have MBAs, none of your promot

tl;dr: If there's no reason to get an MBA as a promotion-track engineer, then not only will none of your promoted engineers will have MBAs, none of your promoted MBAs will have practical experience being a great engineer. They wouldn't, of course. And that's really the problem. If you don't have mid-level technical managers with MBAs, you don't get to promote/hire VP-level technical MBAs. An MBA does teach a lot of valuable skills. As many smart technical founders/leaders have crashed up against the corporate rocks of running a major division/initiative as business leaders failed due to distance from execution. Right now though there's no role, and no opportunity, for a mid-tier (post-MBA) capital-E engineer. So there will be no MBA-toting, engineering-aware VPs. Without business-fluent engineers (or engineering-fluent business folks) companies are deprived of interdisciplinary innovation. You get financial programs which ignore technical needs, and great inventions which don't have a market. Promotion which doesn't represent reality and deals which can't be executed. Most of the frustration engineers have with business people is not that business folks can't do business well, but that they don't do so understanding the underlying technology. And until there's a reason to want a techie MBA (or business-y Eng) at a sub-VP level, this isn't going to get better.

mxuribe 10y ago
+1!
nekopa 10y ago
So why don't we, as an industry, talk to the Universities, and say that we really need a new program, let's say a TechMBA? (Or for marketing purposes, call it a TeMBA - that really rolls off the tongue :) I'd think that there would be some interest around this from the universities, and business is really crying out for this too. From the Uni viewpoint, it is another product they can leverage, whilst still using there in house competencies and also creating cross university synergies (HBS-MIT TeMBA) For businesses, they get exactly the top management they need - even for non-tech companies - a CIO/CTO with solid tech skills and business skills is a sure winner. P.S. Please forgive me for slipping in the word synergy. I truly believe it's a great word, with a great meaning, but has been flogged to death by the consulting industry. {Edit} Actually, I like the idea of a TeMBA, I am going to start a AskHN: What would the syllabus be for a TeMBA? {Edit 2} Here's the link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11894955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11894955
- DelaneyM 10y ago
  This needs to be solved demand-side, not supply-side. If you graduated a class of TechMBAs right now they wouldn't have any jobs to use their new skills. Flip it around: if Google opened up a new role for "Active engineers with MBAs", and presumably a few others followed suit, a top school or two (GSB/HBS/CBS/etc) would create the curriculum & recruiting plan to fill it. (Most likely Google could do this together with a school, they tend to have very close relationships.)
  - nekopa 10y ago
    Is this not a classic chicken-egg scenario? I think if you graduated a class of TeMBAs right now, they would have jobs just because of the MBA side of the equation. And, I think they would kick-ass in what ever job they take because of their tech skills. Even stooping as low as to say that their Excel skills would rock because they know how to masterfully program macros. But WOW, yes, if someone like Google got behind a program like this, it would take off like nobodies business. But I think we really need to get regular businesses (Davids, not Goliaths) behind this. And somehow, show them the benefits of a well rounded TeMBA graduate.
    - roymurdock 10y ago
      An MBA doesn't really confer any skills that couldn't be acquired from 6 months of actually working/managing at your target company - it's seen as more of a networking tool, and a way for someone to hit the reset button and shift into a different field, or to get a raise within a traditional consulting/corporate migration path. So I have to agree with DelaneyM that the crux of the issue is demand-side: where is the need for specific managerial jobs that require a baseline technical understanding (to estimate timelines, speak intelligently about the product with clients, etc.) as well as basic business skills (negotiation, project management, strong network for potential clients) that is worth the salary that an individual who just invested $200k and 2 years worth of time will be asking?
  - nostrademons 10y ago
    This is basically the APM program in Google. Google stopped hiring PMs without a technical background (either CS coursework, or professional experience as an engineer) in 2008, because they found that the PMs they did hire with no technical experience universally sucked. They also have (had? it's been 2 years since I was there) an active rotation program between eng and PM roles, with the opportunity to transition permanently. A number of my friends did it; I'd seriously considered it, but my manager was willing to let me do PM-type roles without formally switching job titles.
giaour 10y ago
You might be right about the startup world, but there is a massive demand for techie MBA/business-y Eng at the sub-VP level in big tech companies with tiered management. That sounds like exactly the skill set you would need to manage a division or org of one of the big 5.
- DelaneyM 10y ago
  Demand & applicability != opportunity. Maybe it's chicken & egg, maybe it's a Unix philosophy applied to organizational design (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy#Do_One_Thing_and_Do_It_Well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy#Do_One_Thing_a...), but there is virtually no true demand for an engineering MBA. I'm happy to be proven wrong with a counter-example of a posted job description. Try to find one example of a hybrid position with more potential and better pay than a corresponding pure engineering role.

mxuribe 10y ago

+1!

nekopa 10y ago

So why don't we, as an industry, talk to the Universities, and say that we really need a new program, let's say a TechMBA? (Or for marketing purposes, call it a TeMBA - that really rolls off the tongue :) I'd think that there would be some interest around this from the universities, and business is really crying out for this too. From the Uni viewpoint, it is another product they can leverage, whilst still using there in house competencies and also creating cross university synergies (HBS-MIT TeMBA) For businesses, they get exactly the top management they need - even for non-tech companies - a CIO/CTO with solid tech skills and business skills is a sure winner. P.S. Please forgive me for slipping in the word synergy. I truly believe it's a great word, with a great meaning, but has been flogged to death by the consulting industry. {Edit} Actually, I like the idea of a TeMBA, I am going to start a AskHN: What would the syllabus be for a TeMBA? {Edit 2} Here's the link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11894955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11894955

DelaneyM 10y ago
This needs to be solved demand-side, not supply-side. If you graduated a class of TechMBAs right now they wouldn't have any jobs to use their new skills. Flip it around: if Google opened up a new role for "Active engineers with MBAs", and presumably a few others followed suit, a top school or two (GSB/HBS/CBS/etc) would create the curriculum & recruiting plan to fill it. (Most likely Google could do this together with a school, they tend to have very close relationships.)
- nekopa 10y ago
  Is this not a classic chicken-egg scenario? I think if you graduated a class of TeMBAs right now, they would have jobs just because of the MBA side of the equation. And, I think they would kick-ass in what ever job they take because of their tech skills. Even stooping as low as to say that their Excel skills would rock because they know how to masterfully program macros. But WOW, yes, if someone like Google got behind a program like this, it would take off like nobodies business. But I think we really need to get regular businesses (Davids, not Goliaths) behind this. And somehow, show them the benefits of a well rounded TeMBA graduate.
  - roymurdock 10y ago
    An MBA doesn't really confer any skills that couldn't be acquired from 6 months of actually working/managing at your target company - it's seen as more of a networking tool, and a way for someone to hit the reset button and shift into a different field, or to get a raise within a traditional consulting/corporate migration path. So I have to agree with DelaneyM that the crux of the issue is demand-side: where is the need for specific managerial jobs that require a baseline technical understanding (to estimate timelines, speak intelligently about the product with clients, etc.) as well as basic business skills (negotiation, project management, strong network for potential clients) that is worth the salary that an individual who just invested $200k and 2 years worth of time will be asking?
- nostrademons 10y ago
  This is basically the APM program in Google. Google stopped hiring PMs without a technical background (either CS coursework, or professional experience as an engineer) in 2008, because they found that the PMs they did hire with no technical experience universally sucked. They also have (had? it's been 2 years since I was there) an active rotation program between eng and PM roles, with the opportunity to transition permanently. A number of my friends did it; I'd seriously considered it, but my manager was willing to let me do PM-type roles without formally switching job titles.

giaour 10y ago

You might be right about the startup world, but there is a massive demand for techie MBA/business-y Eng at the sub-VP level in big tech companies with tiered management. That sounds like exactly the skill set you would need to manage a division or org of one of the big 5.

DelaneyM 10y ago
Demand & applicability != opportunity. Maybe it's chicken & egg, maybe it's a Unix philosophy applied to organizational design (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy#Do_One_Thing_and_Do_It_Well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy#Do_One_Thing_a...), but there is virtually no true demand for an engineering MBA. I'm happy to be proven wrong with a counter-example of a posted job description. Try to find one example of a hybrid position with more potential and better pay than a corresponding pure engineering role.