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Maybe “it’s not fair to have subordinates earn more” was the justification given to you, but businesses rarely make decisions based on what’s fair. Engineers ar

Maybe “it’s not fair to have subordinates earn more” was the justification given to you, but businesses rarely make decisions based on what’s fair. Engineers are valuable, but individual engineers are largely replaceable. Being able to coordinate a large group successfully also has a lot of value.

whimsicalism 5y ago
Think it has a lot more to do with proximity to those controlling the purse-strings. Intra-firm compensation is not nearly as "rational" as you are making it out to be.
- halpert 5y ago
  Is it really proximity to the purse string? Because even large, profitable founder-led tech companies, where founders have full control and motive to run the company efficiently, adopt middle management. And what evidence is there that middle management is unnecessary? The only evidence presented is theoretical critiques from engineers who feel they stand to gain from the removal of management.
ipaddr 5y ago
Let's be honest. Engineer managers are largely replacable and more easily than individual engineers. The pool is larger and can accept more manager unrelated experience. There is more to this. As the person senior leadership communicates with this person is seen as more important than they are. Senior leadership wants to maintain a leveling system to separate groups of people. It's a hedge a flat organization which makes senior leadership less important. You could swap out this person with another without losing speed but it doesn't work as well with an engineer.
- halpert 5y ago
  Then why don’t companies adopt a flatter structure with higher compensated engineers? The goal of a company is to make money after all. If management could be removed and top engineers retained with higher salaries, then a company would surely have an advantage in the marketplace. Since this doesn’t happen, there must be more to the picture than people in upper management simply clinging to their jobs. If removing middle management were so obvious a change to make, then shareholders would demand it.
  - hiptobecubic 5y ago
    I would be careful with the "if they do it it must be sensible" reasoning. There are a lot of reasons that modeling firms using homo-economicus and perfect markets doesn't pan out.
    - halpert 5y ago
      To me, this is a case to apply Occam’s razor. What is more likely, that this decades old, Dilbertesque criticism of management is true, yet somehow eluded the purview of shareholders? Or that businesses are being run in a relatively efficient manner given the current human condition?
      - jjoonathan 5y ago
        Rules for Rulers is real. It's not that management is dumb, it's that every layer of management is self-interested. Every hierarchy has to contend with principal agent problems. Organizations can do a better or worse job of it, but the incentives are always there and they lead to predictable inefficiencies which are frequently observed. Everyone knows this, but unless you know how to get someone to manage without self-interest, you aren't in a position to solve the problem. Nobody is. That's why it lingers.
        halpert 5y ago
        Is self-interested management really an inefficiency if it’s unavoidable? You don’t get to run a company in a vacuum. You have to run it within the bounds of human behavior. Saying that “if only all humans acted in some way against their nature, then the system would be more efficient” isn’t an effective management strategy.
        jjoonathan 5y ago
        You were arguing that RfR / Dilbert coludn't be true because if it were, it would have been optimized away. I argued that no, just because it happens and is broadly understood doesn't mean that it can be optimized away. You can play semantic games about whether or not it should be called inefficiency -- I don't really care what you call it -- but the RfR / Dilbert dynamic is very real and very prevalent.
- wowokay 5y ago
  Ironically they see engineers as replaceable and view every member of leadership as a Jeff Bezos level unique business edge. I’m all honesty I have just always viewed managements role as a different skill set, one that has successfully thrived longer then the IT industry has even existed. Even while we as engineers tend to feel they are replaceable I think we don’t see the value in the work they do to ensure we get funding, resources, and leadership support.
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  The Rules for Rulers theory vs the Leveraged Value Creation theory. Naturally, reality is a bit of both, but people on top push LVC hard while they never mention RfR. A good leader earns their salary multiples over, but many poor leaders rake in the dough just from RfR.
- resueman 5y ago
  I hate to say it, but I can imagine that a group of engineres with a manager nipping at the heels can be much more valuable in total to a company than a group of engineers left to their own devices. Some may be great at being independently productive but most probably are not. Of course some random idiot nagging the engineers won't be worth much, they need to be experts at the specific business and domain to bring value in this situation. Which also makes them harder to replace. Certainly, companies with engineers who are capable and independet problem-solvers, and who are experts at the company's needs and the domain it operates in, are the most valuable. These are not uncommon either. But a fast-growing company in a fast-growing industry has zero chance of solely hiring such people. They need to widen their net to people that require managing.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    The project manager has the nudging role and the best insight on deliveriables. A manager usually manages other administration aspects and inspirational at times.

whimsicalism 5y ago

Think it has a lot more to do with proximity to those controlling the purse-strings. Intra-firm compensation is not nearly as "rational" as you are making it out to be.

halpert 5y ago
Is it really proximity to the purse string? Because even large, profitable founder-led tech companies, where founders have full control and motive to run the company efficiently, adopt middle management. And what evidence is there that middle management is unnecessary? The only evidence presented is theoretical critiques from engineers who feel they stand to gain from the removal of management.

ipaddr 5y ago

Let's be honest. Engineer managers are largely replacable and more easily than individual engineers. The pool is larger and can accept more manager unrelated experience. There is more to this. As the person senior leadership communicates with this person is seen as more important than they are. Senior leadership wants to maintain a leveling system to separate groups of people. It's a hedge a flat organization which makes senior leadership less important. You could swap out this person with another without losing speed but it doesn't work as well with an engineer.

halpert 5y ago
Then why don’t companies adopt a flatter structure with higher compensated engineers? The goal of a company is to make money after all. If management could be removed and top engineers retained with higher salaries, then a company would surely have an advantage in the marketplace. Since this doesn’t happen, there must be more to the picture than people in upper management simply clinging to their jobs. If removing middle management were so obvious a change to make, then shareholders would demand it.
- hiptobecubic 5y ago
  I would be careful with the "if they do it it must be sensible" reasoning. There are a lot of reasons that modeling firms using homo-economicus and perfect markets doesn't pan out.
  - halpert 5y ago
    To me, this is a case to apply Occam’s razor. What is more likely, that this decades old, Dilbertesque criticism of management is true, yet somehow eluded the purview of shareholders? Or that businesses are being run in a relatively efficient manner given the current human condition?
    - jjoonathan 5y ago
      Rules for Rulers is real. It's not that management is dumb, it's that every layer of management is self-interested. Every hierarchy has to contend with principal agent problems. Organizations can do a better or worse job of it, but the incentives are always there and they lead to predictable inefficiencies which are frequently observed. Everyone knows this, but unless you know how to get someone to manage without self-interest, you aren't in a position to solve the problem. Nobody is. That's why it lingers.
      - halpert 5y ago
        Is self-interested management really an inefficiency if it’s unavoidable? You don’t get to run a company in a vacuum. You have to run it within the bounds of human behavior. Saying that “if only all humans acted in some way against their nature, then the system would be more efficient” isn’t an effective management strategy.
        jjoonathan 5y ago
        You were arguing that RfR / Dilbert coludn't be true because if it were, it would have been optimized away. I argued that no, just because it happens and is broadly understood doesn't mean that it can be optimized away. You can play semantic games about whether or not it should be called inefficiency -- I don't really care what you call it -- but the RfR / Dilbert dynamic is very real and very prevalent.
wowokay 5y ago
Ironically they see engineers as replaceable and view every member of leadership as a Jeff Bezos level unique business edge. I’m all honesty I have just always viewed managements role as a different skill set, one that has successfully thrived longer then the IT industry has even existed. Even while we as engineers tend to feel they are replaceable I think we don’t see the value in the work they do to ensure we get funding, resources, and leadership support.
jjoonathan 5y ago
The Rules for Rulers theory vs the Leveraged Value Creation theory. Naturally, reality is a bit of both, but people on top push LVC hard while they never mention RfR. A good leader earns their salary multiples over, but many poor leaders rake in the dough just from RfR.
resueman 5y ago
I hate to say it, but I can imagine that a group of engineres with a manager nipping at the heels can be much more valuable in total to a company than a group of engineers left to their own devices. Some may be great at being independently productive but most probably are not. Of course some random idiot nagging the engineers won't be worth much, they need to be experts at the specific business and domain to bring value in this situation. Which also makes them harder to replace. Certainly, companies with engineers who are capable and independet problem-solvers, and who are experts at the company's needs and the domain it operates in, are the most valuable. These are not uncommon either. But a fast-growing company in a fast-growing industry has zero chance of solely hiring such people. They need to widen their net to people that require managing.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  The project manager has the nudging role and the best insight on deliveriables. A manager usually manages other administration aspects and inspirational at times.