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...sort of. I'm in this role myself, and I think a lot of middle management positions could at least in theory be eliminated. But it would require 'Developer Z'

...sort of. I'm in this role myself, and I think a lot of middle management positions could at least in theory be eliminated. But it would require 'Developer Z' from the above example to have those uncomfortable conversations with management himself. Would that be a stressful distraction from the work he needs to accomplish? Almost certainly. Could it be a net savings for the company? Yes, iff the right processes/culture were in place. Since taking this position I've started to think of middle managers as human lubrication on the gears of bureaucracy. The better the gears fit together, the fewer of us are needed. Unfortunately, we're not really incentivised to make ourselves useless, so designing better gears isn't something a lot of us spend time on. And I don't know how one could properly incentivise a whole class of mid-seniority people to work themselves out of a job.

tracerbulletx 5y ago
If you've ever worked as a software developer in a small company you might have found yourself being both a developer and directly reporting to what constitutes upper management at a small company, often the owner or president of the company. I was in this situation early on in my career and managing the business side absolutely becomes a whole job, but also I think I did my best work and had a bigger impact of any job I had after because I was directly owning the outcomes of software I was writing. (Of course doing both well is incredibly challenging and often ends up resulting in poor software quality, or poor engagement with management) But it's pretty exhilarating if you can pull it off and maintain a high standard of quality.