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Some of the most important jobs in tech don't require coding skills, they require problem-solving, planning, due diligence, and operations skills. A great tech
by throwaway984393 5y ago
Some of the most important jobs in tech don't require coding skills, they require problem-solving, planning, due diligence, and operations skills. A great tech lead or department manager merely asks the right questions and gets people to do the right things at the right time. Most of the non-software-dev roles have various skillsets and can be huge assets if they can think about the big picture and put decisions/work into better context.
And actually now that I think of it, just reading the documentation of tech is a huge benefit. You can know more about some tech than a software dev purely because the dev may never have read all the docs and aren't familiar with all its capabilities. Architects for example are voracious readers and don't really write code.
- hrnn 5y agoWhat I've always wondered, is when getting into one of those roles (i.e. Tech Lead) without coding history or expertise, wouldn't you be missing credibility?
- spikej 5y agoNot as long as they have a good understanding of what's involved, and can ask questions leading you to deliver better value to business.
- sesteel 5y agoLeadership is about managing risk, so that is a hard disagreement from me. Any good leader, especially a tech lead, needs to be able to both define the path and execute the path. If you don't have the skills or background to execute the path, you often have no clue what is involved and aren't of much help. Even when well versed in a domain and related tech, we get surprised all the time.
- nojito 5y agoI've said this before. The very best managers at FAANG and similar cannot code out of a wet paper bag and yet they are productivity multipliers for their teams which is why their compensation is so much higher than what most people think.
- captainredbeard 5y ago> The very best managers at FAANG and similar cannot code out of a wet paper bag You'd be surprised - there are some sharp VPs out there that identify code-level problems instantly.
- nojito 5y agoSure, but that's not why they are VPs.