4 ms·

You need to know the domain in complex fields. In my area, the non engineers have no clue what is going on and are almost dead weight. The high output engineers

You need to know the domain in complex fields. In my area, the non engineers have no clue what is going on and are almost dead weight. The high output engineers now in management aren't always the best at managing people, but at least they make good decisions and don't slow the rest of us down.

kaspm 8y ago
I think this is a good general point. Looking at management as "just hire a good people manager" is too myopic. It takes many things to just be a good "people" manager - empathy, high bar setting, ability to negotiate compromises. And that doesn't include the _other_ skillsets a good engineering manager has: understanding the time tradeoffs of the team, delivery management, ability to resolve technical stalemates, ability to communicate effectively up, down and across to ensure people are coordinated, work is non-duplicative and efficient. Being an engineering manager is not a "black hole" for old people who don't program, it's a completely different technical skillset. A good one produces quite a bit more value to the company than _most_ single engineers can. Not because they are bad, but because writing good software requires lots of good engineers working together.
- 3rdAccount 8y ago
  In my case I'm referring to a regular/traditional engineer and not software engineer for my particular industry, but the concepts a as far as management go are the same. One thing that makes me glad I'm not in a software shop is that I see virtually zero age discrimination. It takes years and years to build up industry experience, so generally speaking, the older the better. Where young folks usually do better is with computers/programming/automation as it wasn't common place outside of college for older engineers. This doesn't mean that some older engineers can't write some Fortran though.
nbm 8y ago
You probably don't need to force the _best_ engineers go into management to achieve this - you just need someone with the necessary background and experience - and from that larger pool you can choose the ones that want to do management, and are more likely going to be good at it. The managers I deal with day-to-day were all once ICs in the same role, but I wouldn't put almost any of them in the same category as the strongest ICs we have in technical skill. And they mostly don't make bad technical decisions - because they mostly don't make any technical decisions - they defer to their strong ICs.
- FuckOffNeemo 8y ago
  For my own knowledge and perhaps others can understand your comment better, what's an IC?
  - RhodesianHunter 8y ago
    Individual contributor
  - rdl 8y ago
    Individual Contributor, i.e. non-manager.
- 3rdAccount 8y ago
  You're making the assumption that the company actually has a technical track (or one deep enough to match management) where the only way up isn't management. It shouldn't be that way, but it commonly is.

kaspm 8y ago

I think this is a good general point. Looking at management as "just hire a good people manager" is too myopic. It takes many things to just be a good "people" manager - empathy, high bar setting, ability to negotiate compromises. And that doesn't include the _other_ skillsets a good engineering manager has: understanding the time tradeoffs of the team, delivery management, ability to resolve technical stalemates, ability to communicate effectively up, down and across to ensure people are coordinated, work is non-duplicative and efficient. Being an engineering manager is not a "black hole" for old people who don't program, it's a completely different technical skillset. A good one produces quite a bit more value to the company than _most_ single engineers can. Not because they are bad, but because writing good software requires lots of good engineers working together.

3rdAccount 8y ago
In my case I'm referring to a regular/traditional engineer and not software engineer for my particular industry, but the concepts a as far as management go are the same. One thing that makes me glad I'm not in a software shop is that I see virtually zero age discrimination. It takes years and years to build up industry experience, so generally speaking, the older the better. Where young folks usually do better is with computers/programming/automation as it wasn't common place outside of college for older engineers. This doesn't mean that some older engineers can't write some Fortran though.

nbm 8y ago

You probably don't need to force the _best_ engineers go into management to achieve this - you just need someone with the necessary background and experience - and from that larger pool you can choose the ones that want to do management, and are more likely going to be good at it. The managers I deal with day-to-day were all once ICs in the same role, but I wouldn't put almost any of them in the same category as the strongest ICs we have in technical skill. And they mostly don't make bad technical decisions - because they mostly don't make any technical decisions - they defer to their strong ICs.

FuckOffNeemo 8y ago
For my own knowledge and perhaps others can understand your comment better, what's an IC?
- RhodesianHunter 8y ago
  Individual contributor
- rdl 8y ago
  Individual Contributor, i.e. non-manager.
3rdAccount 8y ago
You're making the assumption that the company actually has a technical track (or one deep enough to match management) where the only way up isn't management. It shouldn't be that way, but it commonly is.