Good managers are few and far between and there are many ways to fail in the role. If you have low level ICs then you’ve got to be contributing as well, leadin

Good managers are few and far between and there are many ways to fail in the role. If you have low level ICs then you’ve got to be contributing as well, leading from the front. If you have high performing ICs then you need to instead be a coach, protecting and representing your talent to the next level up. The best engineering teams need the latter but a lot of managers come up through the ranks looking for a role like the former. I know Meta played that game for a long time and I can completely see why they want to walk it back. They need their high performing ICs to actually do stuff again and start shipping diffs. The luxury of being there to level up the noobs is over, for now.