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> “We tend to select managers either based on their tenure or because they were the best individual contributor on the team,” he says I wish that were true. Bu

> “We tend to select managers either based on their tenure or because they were the best individual contributor on the team,” he says I wish that were true. But in my experience, the people who seem to be promoted are the 'climbers' - the ones who are looking for opportunities to get ahead, and are less interested in actually performing well at their jobs. Promoting the highest performers would be actually a great idea - imo, one of the key properties of a good hierarchy is buyin from subordinates - seeing someone get promoted who is more experienced or a better coder than me signals to me that I should give that person's opinion more consideration, and if I improve my craft, I'll be eligible for promotion as well. Instead usually the people who get promoted are the ones who suck up to their (likewise incompetent) bosses, say yes to every harebrained scheme coming from up above, rather than pointing out the flaws, and demonstrate 'leadership skills' by posting '5 ways to supercharge your code'-style articles in the group chat. Once these climbing yes men start getting promoted, they show a preferential treatment to their own kind, and the organization's days are numbered. That's why 'non-technical manager' is a contradiction in my humble opinion.

dominotw 4y ago
Yes I've seen the opposite. They are reluctant to promote you if you are a really good IC because they will lose a solid contributor.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  Also known as the Dilbert Principle
vsareto 4y ago
The leetcode grind is playing a game in some respects, and I don't see this as any different. Management was doing this before leetcode was a thing though. >Once these climbing yes men start getting promoted, they show a preferential treatment to their own kind, and the organization's days are numbered. I don't think so. If there were actually company-ending consequences, you'd see this stuff around a lot less. I see a lot of preferential treatment for stuyding/passing leetcode interviews as well. There's also a counter-culture to it which has preferential treatment for people who don't like leetcode. To me this just seems like company culture in America and instead of ending the company, it keeps it going.
- torginus 4y ago
  I didn't mean leetcode-ability when I was talking about technical competence. Why I think leetcode has its place (in interviewing), I think there are far better measures to determine ones technical contributions inside the company, like if someone writes a tool or script to automate a major hurdle saving tons of hours, or is capable of consistently providing high quality insight or elegant solutions, that is a very good benchmark for technical ability.
rr808 4y ago
> the people who seem to be promoted are the 'climbers' - the ones who are looking for opportunities to get ahead, That makes sense to me. They want to actually be the manager. I'm above average developer and could make a decent manager but fundamentally I dont want to do it.
- torginus 4y ago
  The problem is that if you say that, you don't get to veto who does become your manager.
  - Ntrails 4y ago
    If you become a manager you still don't get to veto who becomes your manager - and I assume there is no difference is the level of misery inflictable upon a report just because they themselves have reports. I don't think it's a reasonable counter. Enjoy the work you do, otherwise what's the point in being lucky enough to be selective?
    - rented_mule 4y ago
      Yeah, in my experience, there is a BIG difference. Having a manager who is a bad fit for me has been far more difficult when I've been in management roles than when I've been in IC roles. And it was even worse for me when I was managing managers. Many of the problems (and many of the good things) created by my manager scaled up with the number of people reporting up into me. As an IC, I could minimally comply with any BS requirements and use the rest of my time to create actual value. As a manager, performance is much less directly attributable - it's easy to claim that anything less than full compliance is hurting performance, even if that's the opposite of the truth. Paraphrasing an actual feedback conversation... VP: "I've heard for years that you're an incredible manager that gets great results. But now that you report to me, I'm confused. You can't even get your engineers to fill out the daily status reports I told everyone to do. I think your engineers stay at the company longer because you coddle them." Me: "I think I get results because my management approach, among other things, doesn't involve engineers filling out such reports on a daily basis. I told them they don't have to as long as they surface problems to me right away so that I can keep stakeholders informed. I've found that this allows them to stay focused, leading to better project outcomes and happier engineers." VP: (literally laughs out loud) "No, seriously, they need to be filling those out daily. You're holding them back."
tcgv 4y ago
> Promoting the highest performers would be actually a great idea If they are genuinely interested in the management career, I fully agree, otherwise I'd be more cautious since engineering management is a very different job. A top performer may be a better fit for a technical specialist role, keep producing high quality apps/systems/code, mentoring colleagues and shaping the technology within the company.
- torginus 4y ago
  Generally the problem is, in many (most) companies, management track is the only track. I'm not sure how many companies have the maturity of recognizing that management stuff is just one of the things one must do, which some people have a knack/passion for, like devops or talking to customers. Most companies have an org chart, and the level of success/pay correlated to how high you are on said chart (in no small part due to your pay being determined by the person above you). This is an unfortunate reality, but truth is, programmers can avoid this BS to some degree, because can jump ship any time/start contracting, but this is even more the rule in other industries, that some paper pusher out-earns the movers and shakers.
adamsmith143 4y ago
>Promoting the highest performers would be actually a great idea That's actually a terrible idea. You lose a major contributor to your output and nothing in that person's skillset is necessarily related to good management practices. There's a reason Jeff Dean isn't CEO of Alphabet.

dominotw 4y ago

Yes I've seen the opposite. They are reluctant to promote you if you are a really good IC because they will lose a solid contributor.

zeroonetwothree 4y ago
Also known as the Dilbert Principle

vsareto 4y ago

The leetcode grind is playing a game in some respects, and I don't see this as any different. Management was doing this before leetcode was a thing though. >Once these climbing yes men start getting promoted, they show a preferential treatment to their own kind, and the organization's days are numbered. I don't think so. If there were actually company-ending consequences, you'd see this stuff around a lot less. I see a lot of preferential treatment for stuyding/passing leetcode interviews as well. There's also a counter-culture to it which has preferential treatment for people who don't like leetcode. To me this just seems like company culture in America and instead of ending the company, it keeps it going.

torginus 4y ago
I didn't mean leetcode-ability when I was talking about technical competence. Why I think leetcode has its place (in interviewing), I think there are far better measures to determine ones technical contributions inside the company, like if someone writes a tool or script to automate a major hurdle saving tons of hours, or is capable of consistently providing high quality insight or elegant solutions, that is a very good benchmark for technical ability.

rr808 4y ago

> the people who seem to be promoted are the 'climbers' - the ones who are looking for opportunities to get ahead, That makes sense to me. They want to actually be the manager. I'm above average developer and could make a decent manager but fundamentally I dont want to do it.

torginus 4y ago
The problem is that if you say that, you don't get to veto who does become your manager.
- Ntrails 4y ago
  If you become a manager you still don't get to veto who becomes your manager - and I assume there is no difference is the level of misery inflictable upon a report just because they themselves have reports. I don't think it's a reasonable counter. Enjoy the work you do, otherwise what's the point in being lucky enough to be selective?
  - rented_mule 4y ago
    Yeah, in my experience, there is a BIG difference. Having a manager who is a bad fit for me has been far more difficult when I've been in management roles than when I've been in IC roles. And it was even worse for me when I was managing managers. Many of the problems (and many of the good things) created by my manager scaled up with the number of people reporting up into me. As an IC, I could minimally comply with any BS requirements and use the rest of my time to create actual value. As a manager, performance is much less directly attributable - it's easy to claim that anything less than full compliance is hurting performance, even if that's the opposite of the truth. Paraphrasing an actual feedback conversation... VP: "I've heard for years that you're an incredible manager that gets great results. But now that you report to me, I'm confused. You can't even get your engineers to fill out the daily status reports I told everyone to do. I think your engineers stay at the company longer because you coddle them." Me: "I think I get results because my management approach, among other things, doesn't involve engineers filling out such reports on a daily basis. I told them they don't have to as long as they surface problems to me right away so that I can keep stakeholders informed. I've found that this allows them to stay focused, leading to better project outcomes and happier engineers." VP: (literally laughs out loud) "No, seriously, they need to be filling those out daily. You're holding them back."

tcgv 4y ago

> Promoting the highest performers would be actually a great idea If they are genuinely interested in the management career, I fully agree, otherwise I'd be more cautious since engineering management is a very different job. A top performer may be a better fit for a technical specialist role, keep producing high quality apps/systems/code, mentoring colleagues and shaping the technology within the company.

torginus 4y ago
Generally the problem is, in many (most) companies, management track is the only track. I'm not sure how many companies have the maturity of recognizing that management stuff is just one of the things one must do, which some people have a knack/passion for, like devops or talking to customers. Most companies have an org chart, and the level of success/pay correlated to how high you are on said chart (in no small part due to your pay being determined by the person above you). This is an unfortunate reality, but truth is, programmers can avoid this BS to some degree, because can jump ship any time/start contracting, but this is even more the rule in other industries, that some paper pusher out-earns the movers and shakers.

adamsmith143 4y ago

>Promoting the highest performers would be actually a great idea That's actually a terrible idea. You lose a major contributor to your output and nothing in that person's skillset is necessarily related to good management practices. There's a reason Jeff Dean isn't CEO of Alphabet.