> One way to mask that incompetence and lack of domain level knowledge, in my experience is to come by the workers and look over their shoulders and ask questio

> One way to mask that incompetence and lack of domain level knowledge, in my experience is to come by the workers and look over their shoulders and ask questions. Nothing wrong with asking questions. I'll take a manager that asks questions 100x over a paper pusher that is not curious about what I do and makes dumb decisions due to lack of information. The difference is more nuanced. How you ask and what you ask is what makes a difference. As a manager with a long dev career before, I know better than asking random questions at random times without context. I need to provide context about why I am asking and what I'm hoping to achieve and why sometimes educating me is good for everyone in the team. You also not need to ask "over the shoulder" when you have source control, tickets, design docs and presumably other artifacts to track progress of what's being done. Domain knowledge is a big advantage, but if you're a good manager eventually you'll find yourself leading teams in domains you had not worked on before. Unless you're talking about the domain here being "sw engineering", it is almost inevitable you end up leading teams in an area where you're not the expert. It requires a more skilled manager to be successful at leading a team where you cannot rely on your domain expertise.