16 ms·

At a unicorn I was working at, MBAs were being hired to be engineering managers. I did not see a single engineer promoted to management, it was mostly all MBAs.

• temp246810 10y ago
  Why don't you name the company? Unless there is personally identifying information about you somewhere in your comment history, your comment would be so much more helpful with useful examples, especially for people that are familiar with the actual company. Just my 2 cents.
  • sumitkumar 10y ago
    It's flipkart.
    • pavanky 10y ago
      Sounded very much like an Indian company. But I'd rather see OP mention the company name :)
  • sage76 10y ago
    Not sure if I should directly name. You can google my info and quickly find out which startup it is.
• codemac 10y ago
  When I worked outside of SV, I saw the same thing. Several engineers went off to schools nearby to get MBAs just so their careers could improve. Once in SV though... I rarely see this. When you get an MBA, it's a huge signal to an employer that you accomplished something, and no amount of bad management can ignore that you were issued an MBA. I think job hopping in SV can accomplish the same type of signal.
  • acchow 10y ago
    > When you get an MBA, it's a huge signal to an employer that you accomplished something What?
    • lukas099 10y ago
      I think the key word here is something.
    • shanusmagnus 10y ago
      Receiving an MBA.
    • vijucat 10y ago
      That you bring some core competencies to the table that are actionable [1]. That you can calc the ROI on data-driven paradigm shifts [1]. That you can ensure there are enough boots on the ground to manage customer expectations. That you can peel the onion on our go-to markets and incentivize monetizable synergies leading to win-win solutions [2]. That you have become an irreplaceable employee, that you're a girl who gets up early, a girl who stays up late, a girl with uninterrupted prosperity, who uses a machete to cut through red tape, with fingernails that shine like justice, and a voice that is dark like tinted glass. She is fast and thorough and sharp as a tack. She's touring the facility and picking up slack. A girl with a smooth liquidation, a girl with good dividends. A girl with a short skirt and a lonnnnng jacket [3]. [1] MBA jargon watch, pg 1, 2: http://www.johnsmurf.com/jargon.htm http://www.johnsmurf.com/jargon.htm, http://www.johnsmurf.com/jargon2.htm http://www.johnsmurf.com/jargon2.htm [2] 89 Business Cliches That Will Get Any MBA Promoted: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/06/19/89-business-cliches-that-will-get-any-mba-promoted-to-middle-management-and-make-them-totally-useless/#527dd47f2fff http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/06/19/89-busine... [3] Cake - Short Skirt and Long Jacket : http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/cake/shortskirtlongjacket.html http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/cake/shortskirtlongjacket.htm... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7aDstrDMf0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7aDstrDMf0
• johnbellone 10y ago
  I have been lucky in my career to become an engineering leader/manager without having to go and get an MBA. But I still have the same concerns for continuing the climb up that proverbial ladder: what if I want to become the head of a large department? what if I want to become a CTO? The raw truth of the matter is that it seems that having an MBA is likely the same litmus test as having a B.S. in computer science. Perhaps one can skirt around that requirement if they have a PhD in a particular subject matter that is the new sexy thing. But I still question if I should simply get an MBA, or focus on getting a PhD in research I am actually interested in.
  • arcanus 10y ago
    Get the doctorate. Don't feed the trend if you don't want it to grow.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • sage76 10y ago
      The MBA would probably be cheaper and definitely less of a commitment, especially an executive MBA. Te reverse this trend, engineers really need to look at management as an important function. I don't see lawyers and doctors doing MBAs to move into management positions, but somehow, many engineers have this tendency of looking askance at management. That leaves the field open for outsiders to swoop in.
      • rplst8 10y ago
        I think the aversion that most engineers have to management, is that software development is already a very nebulous beast. Actually delivering a solution that is called a "success" is often a slippery moving target. Being the one who is responsible for the project's success is even scarier.
        • sage76 10y ago
• bluedino 10y ago
  >> I did not see a single engineer promoted to management Good engineers don't necessarily mean good managers
  • jkern 10y ago
    isn't the entire point of this article the opposite?
    • netghost 10y ago
      I think the point is that having some level of technical skills is important, but I don't think it alone will let you be a good manager. Unfortunately, the article neither publishes the dataset, nor goes into it in much depth.
  • arijo 10y ago
    Being an engineer does not necessarily make you a bad manager though.
  • steego 10y ago
    They don't, but my experience is more than half are good managers. The best ones I've found delegate by challenging their teams, but also follow up regularly on both an individual and team level. Even mediocre managers can be upgraded to effective managers if they're willing to learn from effective managers.
  • FT_intern 10y ago
    The goal post is not "good manager". It is just "better than non-technical managers"
• krzyk 10y ago
  Do you want to move up? Don't you feel that becoming a manager (as opposite to individual contributor) will make you loose touch with the tech?
  • rhizome 10y ago
    Unavoidably, but is "becoming a manager" the only definition of "moving up?"
    • battlebot 10y ago
      Unfortunately, the answer is "yes." I have avoided doing that and the only way I moved "up" was first to move around, then to move into a consulting firm, then finally to my own corporation that is also a consulting firm. Is that a viable career trajectory? I have made it work, but I long ago gave up the idea that I would be anything except an "independent contributor." I did look at jobs like "architect" but those jobs are holding pens for people who couldn't cut it as developers but had enough company knowledge to want to keep around. I don't know what most architects do all day, I've never had one actually help accomplish anything. They like meetings and conferences and overeating, it seems. Tech is a badly broken field in terms of career advancement. For a long time it made me very jaded. But I'm rich now, so I could give a shit.
    • autotune 10y ago
      Not at an employer you want to be at long term.
  • shanusmagnus 10y ago
    Maintaining contact with tech (as in engineering) may not be the success criterion.
• rb808 10y ago
  I know a bunch of mid-level guys that have part time MBAs that never really used them. I think if you really want to be a leader/manager there are lots of opportunities to do so already. If you dont like being the boss, an MBA wont help you magically change you into a different person on a different (better) career track. It does provide some useful skills for people that want to be managers, but most people I know that did the MBA just kept their same jobs and were happy to do so. If you really want to be a top manager you might benefit.
• pjungwir 10y ago
  One of my in-laws is a geologist who works for the oil companies, and he tells me in that industry almost all the big executives are engineers. Since he's been in the news, take Rex Tillerson. His degree is in engineering. Or take any of "the professions": law, accounting, medicine, business consulting, engineering firms. In all those cases you have "partners" who have moved into sales and management. Sometimes they are even still practicing too. Also I get the impression their management is more about giving expert direction to their team, rather than watching Gantt charts. Also when I read Skunk Works by Ben Rich, it sounded like the upper management had come up through engineering. So I don't think management-by-MBAs is necessarily the right thing for tech workers. The more you consider programming to be "knowledge work", the more it seems like managers should be experts in the field. Of course they will need to learn new skills---to lead, to manage, to design products, to sell, to hire, to budget, to read financial statements, etc.---but having that technical background seems very important.
  • analog31 10y ago
    My hypothesis is that the MBA degree is largely valued by other people with MBA degrees, so you have pockets of high MBA concentration that grow within specific businesses. MBA's hire other MBA's, but also encourage their most promising subordinates to get MBA's.
    • VLM 10y ago
      Progressive political views work the same way. As a more obscure example at a former nationwide financial services employer I was the only WAN engineer ever hired on to the team who wasn't involved in a specific niche of IPSC competitive handgun shooting. I got hired only because I was ex-military and the VP assumed I had experience with the 1911 platform (actually we had M9 by then) so I'd join the team once the paychecks rolled in. Its an expression of human nature in general.
    • DashRattlesnake 10y ago
      > My hypothesis is that the MBA degree is largely valued by other people with MBA degrees, so you have pockets of high MBA concentration that grow within specific businesses. I have a friend who got a specialist business degree and then got an MBA. I don't really recall him ever really talking about what he studied or learned during the MBA, but he did talk a lot about networking. A lot of the program consisted of taking many foreign "educational" trips all over the world (networking with classmates) and then access to the alumni network was supposed to help you get a job. It really sounded more like a high-class job placement club than an educational pursuit. If that's how it actually is, I can totally see how a business can get colonized by MBAs once one gets his foot in the door. My friend himself is a good guy, but a couple of his classmates are some of the shallowest people I've ever met.
• acchow 10y ago
  > I am not in silicon valley, so not sure about there but over here From what I've seen here there are "product managers" and "engineering managers" and they have very different responsibilities (tho I don't fully understand the former yet). I've never seen an MBA engineering manager before.
• robalfonso 10y ago
  This is the problem that remains unsolved for many businesses. Good engineers don't necessarily make good managers. So they hire MBA's to be managers, but a MBA doesn't correlate to being a good manager either, in fact there is a chance that they may be a worse manager - because they don't do anything in particular (related to products that is). So really when it comes down to it, hire managers who are good at managing people/processes and have some kind of real experience in your product or service. And in lieu of that hire a good manager who is smart and can pick it up, way down the line is hire a manager by their degree - if thats all they have going for them you are probably in for a painful ride. Also a MBA is great if you pair it with a engineering background, but also be concerned about executives (CEO,etc) that can't sniff out people in their organization who would be a good manager regardless of background - some people have knack for management, like any other natural talent.
• NickNameNick 10y ago
  There's a specific qualification called a Masters of Engineering Management. Maybe it needs to be more common.
  • GFischer 10y ago
    I have one, but it isn't valued much by employers over here. They'd rather hire an experienced manager or a straight MBA. It was a very good experience though and I hope it will serve in the future. It's now being discontinued at the university I studied and prospective students are now directed to the MBA program (I actually can get the MBA with a few more hours and paying a lot more money since I already have 95% of the coursework).
  • bravo3 10y ago
    From what I have heard, engineering management is neither engineering nor management. :)
• thisisit 10y ago
  While I can't speak for what happened at this company. I think the problem is not "MBAs or engineers being managers" rather them not being good listeners. And that is the point the HBR article is also missing. In my previous job, I had manager (ex-engineer) who would often say - "I don't even understand what are you talking about". But he would always listen patiently to us and even spend some of his personal time after office or weekends on google trying to understand the issue in depth. If he came across articles/links he thought could help us, he would email us. If he couldn't do that, he always approached the upper management to provide us training or help as required. while in my recent job I had a manager (ex-engineer) who tried his best to come across as someone with "deep expertise". He would often google topics we wanted to discuss with him. The end result wasn't pretty. Lot of times he would make an assertion that he read somewhere that the design we were presenting was unworkable. Example: while talking about a design on "messaging queues" (MQ) using RabbitMQ he insisted on using Microsoft Outlook. It can handle so much daily load of message (email) volume he said.
  • Benjammer 10y ago
    That's the difference between a manager trying to be the grease between all the gears of the team, and a manager who wants to provide a little extra force himself on every gear. Both management styles help the gears turn, but with the latter method you end up with more friction between the gears.
  • PaulKeeble 10y ago
    That clearly isn't an example of a manager with deep technical expertise, its a poor engineer who has been promoted and is faking it. By the measures in the study he would not have counted as a deep knowledge engineer. Just because he was an engineer doesn't mean he has any deep skills.
  • brlewis 10y ago
    I suspect you're right. The reason for the phenomenon this article is about is that deep expertise correlates with being a good listener when an engineer is describing a problem. But it isn't a necessary condition.
  • 10y ago
• oculusthrift 10y ago
  If you watch Noam Chomsky's 'Requiem for the American Dream' on Netflix it talks about how the heads of all these companies used to be engineers but at some point all the finance/MBA type of people started dominating these positions. This also happened in Washington and now essentially the whole world is owned/run by Finance/MBA types who focus on short term earnings instead of value creation.
  • dv_dt 10y ago
    Focus on is maybe slightly missing the point, they may not even have the background to appreciate or imagine the possibility of value creation that is not in their area of expertise. So certain possibilities are essentially invisible to those companies. It's made worse because it's the large successful corporations that actually have the resources to fix problems that few other players can even imagine (even with venture funding....). So those companies (and the market, and society) may miss out on fundamental exploration and expansion of real-world productivity. Perhaps, this is a contributor in the curious drop in economic productivity despite, in theory, so much availability of new technology.
    • oculusthrift 10y ago
      At points during the last decade, 40 pct of profits were made by the Finance sector. And companies like GE can make a billion dollars by lobbying for tax loopholes rather than creating new products. So this seems like the type of stuff they focus on.
      • dv_dt 10y ago
        GE gets too sweet of a tax deal, but out of many corporations to choose as an example, I don't think my comment applies as strongly to GE. Though they do work with financial matters, they've been backing away from finance as a central profit center, and refreshing their technology core (as exemplified by their divestment of a banking asset). Recently, GE is focused make strong investments in R&D and actually have been on a bit of a binge buying up many startups with advanced manufacturing capabilities. So they seem to have a strong technical vision that they're building towards. Disclaimer: am an individual GE stock holder so that may color my view here.
• battlebot 10y ago
  MBAs are mostly worthless people that get churned out of business schools and have no ability for independent thought. What did you expect?
• viswanathk 10y ago
  If you're talking about Flipkart, then it's not really a tech company as much as it is a retail company these days. So it is expected to have more MBAs in important positions, or in places where they can prioritize like an MBA. No wonder Amazon is kicking their ass, and their last few product launches were nothing short of a disaster.
• smrtinsert 10y ago
  Yeah sounds like Zenefits sucked.
• nunez 10y ago
  Sounds like a place run by people who owed a lot of favors
• wilsynet 10y ago
  In Silicon Valley it is rare that an engineering manager would have an MBA. And at Google or Facebook, they would more likely have a PhD than an MBA.
• IndianAstronaut 10y ago
  I currently work under an MBA manager. It is very frustrating. Deadlines are unrealistic, micromanagement is the norm, and if things don't go according to their deadlines they threaten.
• Method-X 10y ago
  You should consider entrepreneurship. Climbing a corporate ladder is only one path to "success".
• stmfreak 10y ago
  People have an uncanny affinity for the familiar. A company founded by MBA graduates will likely have a preference for more MBA graduates. Engineers prefer engineers. Use that to guide your selection process, but I've tried to find companies that value a balance.