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I agree with this in principle. Gets a lot tougher in practice, though. "Manager" really shouldn't be a job in tech, at least when it comes to individual teams

I agree with this in principle. Gets a lot tougher in practice, though. "Manager" really shouldn't be a job in tech, at least when it comes to individual teams. Management should be a skill, just like all the other dozens of skills tech teams manage in various ad-hoc ways. Groups of teams plays out differently, since you're really starting to work at the meta level. Even then, though, management is just one of a bunch of skills necessary. (At that point, however, it may be so much of a primary skill to warrant a separate role)

pavel_lishin 8y ago
> Management should be a skill, just like all the other dozens of skills tech teams manage in various ad-hoc ways. I would phrase it as "like all the other dozens of skills tech teams half-ass in various broken ways".
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  I think an important point in modern technology development is that to make anything of value happen, you constantly deal with dozens of various silos, each of which can be a lifelong specialty area. You have to learn to skim most of the time and be able to dive deep -- a bit -- as necessary. We may be saying the same thing, but I like my way better :)
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    I agree that everyone needs some management skills, but I'm not convinced that most teams can be run without a dedicated manager.
    - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
      Agreed. The same as most teams cannot be run without a dedicated DBA. The question is whether or not the DBA does other things, not whether that skill is needed or not. If you've got six or seven people that need constant management, you're working at a burger joint, not a tech shop. If I remember correctly, in the book "In the Plex", Google scaled out to thousands of developers without having a dedicated management slot. (This is a good time to mention that all generalizations are false, including this one) In general, in the tech world I find the biggest supporters of "X should be its own job" are either the people who do X -- or train people to do X. Customers don't care one way or another. Neither should we. If we need an X, we get one.
      - pavel_lishin 8y ago
        My understanding of what a good manager's job is consists of largely managing the interface between the team doing the tech work, and the rest of the company: ensuring there's no external blockers, making sure that requirements are accurate, that realistic expectations are being communicated in both directions, etc. I don't imagine it as someone whose job it is to ask me once an hour, "so how's it going, can you code any faster?"
        DanielBMarkham 8y ago
        Yep. Clearing obstacles and managing externals -- although once you give somebody the title there seems to be a lot more involved. The good managers I've seen don't talk a lot. The best managers are developers who have a natural skill for the work and got voted into the job, They do that obstacle-clearing and coordination on an as-needed basis, working alongside everyone else the rest of the time. The core of the problem is that tech development involves way more skills than there are people, no matter how you want to slice them. When you go for training or start putting folks in roles, the assumption is that your role is at the center of the org. Not the value creation stream. There's an oversimplification and false focus that occurs that's antithetical to getting things done. So yes, that's the manager's job. But it rarely stays like that.
      - mmt 8y ago
        > In general, in the tech world I find the biggest supporters of "X should be its own job" are either the people who do X -- or train people to do X That strikes me as a characterization with more cynicism implied than necessary. I, personally, routinely support job specialization, even outside my own specialty. Partly, this is bias/solidarity, but, partly, it's that, even though I'm happy doing Y, I don't want to end up spending 20% of my time doing X (and neither does almost anyone else, which they may not admit). > Customers don't care one way or another. Neither should we. If we need an X, we get one. Except that, no, "we" don't get one, not if we've trained ourselves, in the entire industry, to think X isn't its own job. Instead, we get a Z-that-can-also-do-some-X (but may, as I alluded to above, actually not want to do that X, or, as other comments in the thread suggest, can't do all of X). This is especially noticeable among startup job postings over the last 5 years where Z is programmer and X is either manager or ops (including the sub-specialty of DBA). How do someone even know they need an X if no X exists in their world? How we talk about things, especially to newer entrants into the industry matters. We should care.
rhizome 8y ago
Management should be a skill, just like all the other dozens of skills tech teams manage in various ad-hoc ways. You mean like how system administration has been downgraded to a skill that is tacked onto developers via DevOps?

pavel_lishin 8y ago

> Management should be a skill, just like all the other dozens of skills tech teams manage in various ad-hoc ways. I would phrase it as "like all the other dozens of skills tech teams half-ass in various broken ways".

DanielBMarkham 8y ago
I think an important point in modern technology development is that to make anything of value happen, you constantly deal with dozens of various silos, each of which can be a lifelong specialty area. You have to learn to skim most of the time and be able to dive deep -- a bit -- as necessary. We may be saying the same thing, but I like my way better :)
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  I agree that everyone needs some management skills, but I'm not convinced that most teams can be run without a dedicated manager.
  - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
    Agreed. The same as most teams cannot be run without a dedicated DBA. The question is whether or not the DBA does other things, not whether that skill is needed or not. If you've got six or seven people that need constant management, you're working at a burger joint, not a tech shop. If I remember correctly, in the book "In the Plex", Google scaled out to thousands of developers without having a dedicated management slot. (This is a good time to mention that all generalizations are false, including this one) In general, in the tech world I find the biggest supporters of "X should be its own job" are either the people who do X -- or train people to do X. Customers don't care one way or another. Neither should we. If we need an X, we get one.
    - pavel_lishin 8y ago
      My understanding of what a good manager's job is consists of largely managing the interface between the team doing the tech work, and the rest of the company: ensuring there's no external blockers, making sure that requirements are accurate, that realistic expectations are being communicated in both directions, etc. I don't imagine it as someone whose job it is to ask me once an hour, "so how's it going, can you code any faster?"
      - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
        Yep. Clearing obstacles and managing externals -- although once you give somebody the title there seems to be a lot more involved. The good managers I've seen don't talk a lot. The best managers are developers who have a natural skill for the work and got voted into the job, They do that obstacle-clearing and coordination on an as-needed basis, working alongside everyone else the rest of the time. The core of the problem is that tech development involves way more skills than there are people, no matter how you want to slice them. When you go for training or start putting folks in roles, the assumption is that your role is at the center of the org. Not the value creation stream. There's an oversimplification and false focus that occurs that's antithetical to getting things done. So yes, that's the manager's job. But it rarely stays like that.
    - mmt 8y ago
      > In general, in the tech world I find the biggest supporters of "X should be its own job" are either the people who do X -- or train people to do X That strikes me as a characterization with more cynicism implied than necessary. I, personally, routinely support job specialization, even outside my own specialty. Partly, this is bias/solidarity, but, partly, it's that, even though I'm happy doing Y, I don't want to end up spending 20% of my time doing X (and neither does almost anyone else, which they may not admit). > Customers don't care one way or another. Neither should we. If we need an X, we get one. Except that, no, "we" don't get one, not if we've trained ourselves, in the entire industry, to think X isn't its own job. Instead, we get a Z-that-can-also-do-some-X (but may, as I alluded to above, actually not want to do that X, or, as other comments in the thread suggest, can't do all of X). This is especially noticeable among startup job postings over the last 5 years where Z is programmer and X is either manager or ops (including the sub-specialty of DBA). How do someone even know they need an X if no X exists in their world? How we talk about things, especially to newer entrants into the industry matters. We should care.

rhizome 8y ago

Management should be a skill, just like all the other dozens of skills tech teams manage in various ad-hoc ways. You mean like how system administration has been downgraded to a skill that is tacked onto developers via DevOps?