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I do not agree. In most of the cases a manager sits in the right meeting at the right place and right moment where a critical decision has to be taken. Those mo

I do not agree. In most of the cases a manager sits in the right meeting at the right place and right moment where a critical decision has to be taken. Those moments are often the ones that will determine how a project will go. Having management skills and being able to understand the big picture from a technical perspective makes all the difference in such situations. While it's true that the set of skills are orthogonal I strongly believe that a "technical manager" , other skills being equals, will in average be able to produce better results over non technical managers. I am working in enterprise IT and I have seen many instances of "non technical managers" taking wrong decisions at the right moment just because of a lack of understanding of the possible consequences. Good technical managers are however quite rare because they need to combine two skill sets that are already rare alone. I believe that this is the reason why companies look just for "pure managers": for me it's more a matter of convenience rather than one of performance.

temac 5y ago
I kind of agree with you, but the problem is that "management" is often (very) poorly defined. Is it people or project management? It is often implicitly the two without much rational. Even considering project management the style can vary greatly between somebody concentrating on filling various spreasheets vs somebody pressuring others all the time about deadline vs somebody wanting to ensure engineering is performed and not just mere coding vs somebody having broad picture ideas for future dev. It makes sense to have "managers" in fast foods. It's way harder to even just define the role in an environment where everybody is a knowledge worker. Maybe we should even stop using that term and stick with more precise role descriptions.
- epicureanideal 5y ago
  I agree that some titles could be changed not to have manager in the title and be a role instead. For example: Product manager -> product designer But what about the people who decide salaries, promotions, hiring, and reviews? Part of the role is “project coordinator” and another part is “staffing and compensation”. Is there an alternative title for that?
  - playing_colours 5y ago
    I think the responsibilities of project coordinator / project manager can be a part of the work of senior IC (Principal Engineer) or someone like Agile Coach, Delivery Lead. Recently, I was a Chief Architect - an IC role - and organised and drove cross-team initiatives was a part of my work. It is not an easy skill, it needs practicing and the work is time consuming, may not be a fun quite often, but I think you do not absolutely have to assign it to a manager.
VPwithSkillz 5y ago
Great reply, I sit in meetings and see management who have no technical clue making pivotal decisions, resetting timelines without consulting their Architects, and will decimate them with no mercy. Yeah, I’m a paper pusher now but keep my skills up at night by doing consulting gigs on the DL and swore when I got into management I’d stop these ignorant schmucks from making decisions affecting project and product success all while rubbing their noses in their idiocy. Publicly. Those decisions get reversed and they learn to consult with technical staff before opening their uniformed pie holes.

temac 5y ago

I kind of agree with you, but the problem is that "management" is often (very) poorly defined. Is it people or project management? It is often implicitly the two without much rational. Even considering project management the style can vary greatly between somebody concentrating on filling various spreasheets vs somebody pressuring others all the time about deadline vs somebody wanting to ensure engineering is performed and not just mere coding vs somebody having broad picture ideas for future dev. It makes sense to have "managers" in fast foods. It's way harder to even just define the role in an environment where everybody is a knowledge worker. Maybe we should even stop using that term and stick with more precise role descriptions.

epicureanideal 5y ago
I agree that some titles could be changed not to have manager in the title and be a role instead. For example: Product manager -> product designer But what about the people who decide salaries, promotions, hiring, and reviews? Part of the role is “project coordinator” and another part is “staffing and compensation”. Is there an alternative title for that?
- playing_colours 5y ago
  I think the responsibilities of project coordinator / project manager can be a part of the work of senior IC (Principal Engineer) or someone like Agile Coach, Delivery Lead. Recently, I was a Chief Architect - an IC role - and organised and drove cross-team initiatives was a part of my work. It is not an easy skill, it needs practicing and the work is time consuming, may not be a fun quite often, but I think you do not absolutely have to assign it to a manager.

VPwithSkillz 5y ago

Great reply, I sit in meetings and see management who have no technical clue making pivotal decisions, resetting timelines without consulting their Architects, and will decimate them with no mercy. Yeah, I’m a paper pusher now but keep my skills up at night by doing consulting gigs on the DL and swore when I got into management I’d stop these ignorant schmucks from making decisions affecting project and product success all while rubbing their noses in their idiocy. Publicly. Those decisions get reversed and they learn to consult with technical staff before opening their uniformed pie holes.