I think of front-line managers (of ICs) as part of "middle management" (anything "in the middle" between ICs and executives) but I can see how some might think

I think of front-line managers (of ICs) as part of "middle management" (anything "in the middle" between ICs and executives) but I can see how some might think of middle management as managers of managers. Anyway, that's why I added the clarification. To your point, yeah, I'm also seeing a lot more "hands on" call outs in JDs for EMs, if not writing code, at least doing code reviews.