Depends on what the role of manager is. Lots of orgs push their best talent into management so they are also expected to do IC and also manage. My belief is

Depends on what the role of manager is. Lots of orgs push their best talent into management so they are also expected to do IC and also manage. My belief is there should be a separate but with equal pay track for ICs and you push your best ICs into that track. Ratios between of one manager to 10 to 20 ICs. Also there is benefit of flat orgs which comes with higher ratio in terms of meeting reduction and also communication efficiency both top down and bottom up.