4 ms·

What's the ideal Manager:IC or Manager:Engr ratio?

guenthert 4y ago
There clearly is not one-size-fits-all. During my career I had quite a few managers. I recall a lady which essentially just ordered us pizza (I'm not making this up). She wasn't the worst manager I had (but yes, hardly worth the money). A few times I worked for fellows who wore two hats, engineer and manager (but presumably got only one salary). I enjoyed that for the most part, as there was little friction within the team, but observed that it wore out said manager due to workload and friction with higher-ups. I've been in a team which was large enough, we couldn't find a room for all to be seated. That was a disaster (also unrelatedly due to the Peter principle). I've been in a two-man "team" with the owner of a start-up. That was quite productive, but probably not very cost-effective.
karmakaze 4y ago
I don't worry about manager:IC links. Where it gets problematic is manager -> manager -> product -> frontend ux reqs -> backend team lead/pm -> ICs. There enough broken telephone there to make building the right thing challenging even if someone along the chain had a crystal clear vision. Multiply that by factors if you have to co-orndinate changes with one of more other company reporting chains. The biggest problem I see are 'generic' managers who don't really understand the customer, product+changes, and/or tech. They just want to seem important while being an ineffective relay that basically only serves upward.
singron 4y ago
IME you want at least 1 manager per team. A single manager for multiple teams won't really know what's going on. For a team of 2-4, the manager could be a part time IC. For 5 or more reports, the manager probably has to manage full time. This changes the discussion to what is the best team size. Also, how would you organize the responsibilities of your org into teams of that size. E.g. a team should have a cohesive set of responsibilities and ideally have some redundancy (bus factor) to handle personnel changes. If everyone on a team works on completely different things, then this is an arbitrary grouping for HR convenience and the tail is wagging the dog.

There clearly is not one-size-fits-all. During my career I had quite a few managers. I recall a lady which essentially just ordered us pizza (I'm not making this up). She wasn't the worst manager I had (but yes, hardly worth the money). A few times I worked for fellows who wore two hats, engineer and manager (but presumably got only one salary). I enjoyed that for the most part, as there was little friction within the team, but observed that it wore out said manager due to workload and friction with higher-ups. I've been in a team which was large enough, we couldn't find a room for all to be seated. That was a disaster (also unrelatedly due to the Peter principle). I've been in a two-man "team" with the owner of a start-up. That was quite productive, but probably not very cost-effective.

karmakaze 4y ago

I don't worry about manager:IC links. Where it gets problematic is manager -> manager -> product -> frontend ux reqs -> backend team lead/pm -> ICs. There enough broken telephone there to make building the right thing challenging even if someone along the chain had a crystal clear vision. Multiply that by factors if you have to co-orndinate changes with one of more other company reporting chains. The biggest problem I see are 'generic' managers who don't really understand the customer, product+changes, and/or tech. They just want to seem important while being an ineffective relay that basically only serves upward.

singron 4y ago

IME you want at least 1 manager per team. A single manager for multiple teams won't really know what's going on. For a team of 2-4, the manager could be a part time IC. For 5 or more reports, the manager probably has to manage full time. This changes the discussion to what is the best team size. Also, how would you organize the responsibilities of your org into teams of that size. E.g. a team should have a cohesive set of responsibilities and ideally have some redundancy (bus factor) to handle personnel changes. If everyone on a team works on completely different things, then this is an arbitrary grouping for HR convenience and the tail is wagging the dog.