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The middle manager is the pipeline to the senior management. Eliminating a mid career management node only works for a short period of time, until you realize l

The middle manager is the pipeline to the senior management. Eliminating a mid career management node only works for a short period of time, until you realize line managers need a progression, and the senior executives need a population to foster as their replacements. I see this all the time in my career - the idea you can do everything with some piece of the experience continuum eliminated - juniors, mid careers, seniors, etc. Then after 5 or so years they look around and realize their experience pipeline is broken in some way that breaks the org.

loa_in_ 4y ago
This sounds like there's a deeper nested issue at play and the bandaid, when removed, exposes some kind of lacking
- jksmith 4y ago
  Exactly. Supporting these legacy management models should be deprecated. Legacy is all about managing people. The superior approach is re-focusing on managing the flow of value. Layers get eliminated when that happens effectively, regardless of matrix org models or whatever else. I've consulted for 7 F250s now, and I can tell you that grossly about half their management (and leadership) wouldn't be needed if they went to a more efficient delivery system. It's not uncommon for F250 leadership decisions to be driven by the human foibles of ego, politics, finger-pointing, anxiety, stress, at best mis-directed, at worst fraudulent incentives. If lower level knowledge jobs can be eliminated by AI, it's just a matter of time before stockholders start demanding the same impact on management.
  - pfannkuchen 4y ago
    I think if anything the role of a developer will become more manager-like. In the past, human workers executed processes designed by management. Today, computers execute processes designed by software engineers. In essence, software engineers today fill the role of yesterday's management, and the worker of yesterday is the computer of today. If software creation becomes sufficiently more automated, then the worker role of the software engineer today will disappear. We will shift automation further up the organizational pyramid. The role of the manager, e.g. deciding what to do and where to allocate resources, will still exist, just that instead of directing the software engineer worker they will direct the AI. The people most suited to that work are probably software engineers today. Whether this destroys the industry employment-wise depends on whether the new, shorter pyramid grows to fill a space at least as large as the old, taller pyramid. I don't really see why it wouldn't, since there seems to be much more demand for software today than there is supply, but it's hard to tell where things will land.
pg_1234 4y ago
The current middle manager is a pipeline to produce the sort of disconnected senior management that only deals with middle managers ... but perhaps that sort of senior role is next for the chopping block. We can but hope.
svaha1728 4y ago
Sometimes they are just the friends of upper management and not necessarily the senior developers that should have been pushed towards upper management.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  That’s absolutely true. Managers promote managers and there’s a lot of tribalism in management. But I think it’s naive, and a common form of naïveté among engineers, that everything begins and ends with the IC and the senior leaders.

loa_in_ 4y ago

This sounds like there's a deeper nested issue at play and the bandaid, when removed, exposes some kind of lacking

jksmith 4y ago
Exactly. Supporting these legacy management models should be deprecated. Legacy is all about managing people. The superior approach is re-focusing on managing the flow of value. Layers get eliminated when that happens effectively, regardless of matrix org models or whatever else. I've consulted for 7 F250s now, and I can tell you that grossly about half their management (and leadership) wouldn't be needed if they went to a more efficient delivery system. It's not uncommon for F250 leadership decisions to be driven by the human foibles of ego, politics, finger-pointing, anxiety, stress, at best mis-directed, at worst fraudulent incentives. If lower level knowledge jobs can be eliminated by AI, it's just a matter of time before stockholders start demanding the same impact on management.
- pfannkuchen 4y ago
  I think if anything the role of a developer will become more manager-like. In the past, human workers executed processes designed by management. Today, computers execute processes designed by software engineers. In essence, software engineers today fill the role of yesterday's management, and the worker of yesterday is the computer of today. If software creation becomes sufficiently more automated, then the worker role of the software engineer today will disappear. We will shift automation further up the organizational pyramid. The role of the manager, e.g. deciding what to do and where to allocate resources, will still exist, just that instead of directing the software engineer worker they will direct the AI. The people most suited to that work are probably software engineers today. Whether this destroys the industry employment-wise depends on whether the new, shorter pyramid grows to fill a space at least as large as the old, taller pyramid. I don't really see why it wouldn't, since there seems to be much more demand for software today than there is supply, but it's hard to tell where things will land.

pg_1234 4y ago

The current middle manager is a pipeline to produce the sort of disconnected senior management that only deals with middle managers ... but perhaps that sort of senior role is next for the chopping block. We can but hope.

svaha1728 4y ago

Sometimes they are just the friends of upper management and not necessarily the senior developers that should have been pushed towards upper management.

fnordpiglet 4y ago
That’s absolutely true. Managers promote managers and there’s a lot of tribalism in management. But I think it’s naive, and a common form of naïveté among engineers, that everything begins and ends with the IC and the senior leaders.