> It seems to me that once your middle management is infested with non-tech people (because you couldn't resist "growing" forever), you don't stand a chance any

> It seems to me that once your middle management is infested with non-tech people (because you couldn't resist "growing" forever), you don't stand a chance anymore. I fixed a redundancy for you. Otherwise, spot on, and if I had one of those vinyl printers my wife uses to put things like “Home is where your heart is” on the wall, I’d print this, and hang it secretly on the bathroom walls at work. I’m experiencing this right now sadly. Came to work at a company a decade ago with a lot of equality and flat/low management. Engineers of various disciplines were predominantly middle/older, so there was a sense of “we’re all adults here” and it’s worked pretty well for a long time. But as staff is retiring and the business is growing because it forking worked well, the cry for more middle management to “scale” has been heard. Need point people. Points of responsibility. Because we can’t spare real engineers, these are often people with “some engineering in their background” or just know how to play the good buddy network really well and evoke a sense of “trust.” The relationship that’s emerging now with middle management layers is more the family structure. Instead of being a group of collaborative light management adults, the middle manager assumes the parent role, and the workers become the kids. They get to take less risk, be less responsible and avoid the “adulting” stuff that is (endless) meetings and the like. The management/parents obsess about the way their group/family is seen elsewhere in the company. Protecting them name and reputation takes an increased precedence. The “adult kids”, the experiences engineers who want to be treated like adults and not over managed, start looking for a new home to move to. It’s sad really.