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In addition to that, it's been my experience that their Engineering skill diminishes over time, like any other skill that isn't getting the maintenance that it

In addition to that, it's been my experience that their Engineering skill diminishes over time, like any other skill that isn't getting the maintenance that it requires, and they seem to be largely unaware of that. Despite their now-undersized technical knowledge / capabilities, they can still be found forcing technical decisions against the better judgement of their departments actual technical leadership. I've also had this same style of manager become a rate limiting bottleneck by forcing _all_ cross-team decision making to route through him. We gamed that, of course, because we had to, but it was still tacking days on to "decision making" that we had to suffer through just to do our jobs. Want to watch an Engineering team go from: can produce and deliver to doesn't have a clue? Just get yourself a couple of these jokers to be your Engineering teams management.

com2kid 9y ago
> I've also had this same style of manager become a rate limiting bottleneck by forcing _all_ cross-team decision making to route through him. I've seen that work incredibly well when the manager in question did keep up on his technical skills. It can result in a very well designed and consistent system. It also burned out the dev manager in question after two and a half years. A strong talented leader can make a huge difference. Applying the lessons of the past means a lot of engineering mistakes can be avoided. Also, at some point, decisions do have to be made. There will be a disagreement on the team about a direction to take, and having a benevolent dictatorship becomes very useful. Especially in a corporate setting where forking and doing both paths can be disastrous (both paths get underfunded and fail), or just not viable.
bewo001 9y ago
I had former-engineer managers, who were the first to acknowledge that their technical skills weren't up to date. It makes a huge difference if you can explain a technical problem to someone who has solid base skills in the field or if you have to dumb it down to layman level.

com2kid 9y ago

> I've also had this same style of manager become a rate limiting bottleneck by forcing _all_ cross-team decision making to route through him. I've seen that work incredibly well when the manager in question did keep up on his technical skills. It can result in a very well designed and consistent system. It also burned out the dev manager in question after two and a half years. A strong talented leader can make a huge difference. Applying the lessons of the past means a lot of engineering mistakes can be avoided. Also, at some point, decisions do have to be made. There will be a disagreement on the team about a direction to take, and having a benevolent dictatorship becomes very useful. Especially in a corporate setting where forking and doing both paths can be disastrous (both paths get underfunded and fail), or just not viable.

bewo001 9y ago

I had former-engineer managers, who were the first to acknowledge that their technical skills weren't up to date. It makes a huge difference if you can explain a technical problem to someone who has solid base skills in the field or if you have to dumb it down to layman level.