I have seen the 'manager does nothing' situation, and it is a bad idea. The notion that line managers just do people management and literally nothing else is ju

I have seen the 'manager does nothing' situation, and it is a bad idea. The notion that line managers just do people management and literally nothing else is just egregiously harmful to the industry. This is how you end up with three layers of people who do nothing, as explained in the article. A line manager ought to be in the trenches, handling oncall, writing some code now and then, automating the bits of drudgery away, project managing, product managing, code reviewing and generally being an engineer. None of these things have to be done all the time and to the highest level of performance, but the idea that managers delegate all of these responsibilities leads to yes-men being promoted. If, as a manager, you do none of these activities, how on earth do you evaluate your people? You become the Vladimir Putin of your team, fed horseshit by people who have agendas or loudmouths while completely missing out on the concerns of people who do the actual work, with absolutely no idea of the actual performance and problems of the team.