I agree and should have clarified -- technical competence is _a_ requirement for good management, but you still also need to be(come) a good manager in the trad

I agree and should have clarified -- technical competence is _a_ requirement for good management, but you still also need to be(come) a good manager in the traditional sense. Its a different job than writing code and not everyone will be good at it (and arguably by definition, of the relatively small number of good engineers, even fewer will be good managers on top. I would expect quality technical managers to be relatively expensive).