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bytedance has 50-200 reports per manager in some teams and are wildly successful my suspicion is lower numbers are more a function of worker power (demand for

bytedance has 50-200 reports per manager in some teams and are wildly successful my suspicion is lower numbers are more a function of worker power (demand for 1:1s, career growth conversation, offloading more tasks to your manager, etc)

tiffanyh 3y ago
If you have 50-200 direct reports, you’re not a “manager”. You’re effectively either a recruiter or procurement.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  then bytedance doesn't have managers
- bradleyjg 3y ago
  I’ve heard of companies where hundreds of people officially report to person X but there are “mentors” with 3-5 mentees that seem an awful lot like other company’s mangers. Not sure what the point is exactly.
  - duskwuff 3y ago
    > Not sure what the point is exactly. A promotion to "manager" is expected to come with a pay raise. Acting as a "mentor", less so.
  - betaby 3y ago
    I mean manager has at least some power, 'mentors' or 'leads' - don't. At current org. we have ~20 ICs in the department and one manager, there are clearly 3, maybe 4 folks who are more senior in experience and more influential, but no, no one perceive them as managers.
- jacurtis 3y ago
  I remember interviewing someone once that claimed to have 200 direct reports. I was really blunt and said "nobody has 200 direct reports". They assured me that they did. So I grilled them on the mechanics of it. If you had biweekly 1x1s with all of your DRs, you would have to do 100 per week. If 1-on-1s were your fulltime job you could at most do 80 per week (2 per hour x 40 hrs). Thats just rotating through 1x1s. That's not doing anything else. He claimed "team leads" did 1x1s, which is fine, but its hard to call them a direct report if you're not even aware of their daily work. Theres just no way you can adequately manage 200 people. As mentioned above, you are just a glorified HR person, you're no longer in engineering. I would never hire a manager below Director level that isn't themselves an individual contributor. I know its possible to have that but I wouldnt hire it, because we expect IC on our teams.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Exactly. There's a ceiling of span of control, stemming from hours in a week and maximum efficiency.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    Bytedance Eng managers don’t do any 1:1s.
- fencepost 3y ago
  Given the grandparent was talking about Bytedance, perhaps you're the floor supervisor for dozens of disposable people watching reported or flagged content to identify porn, violence, etc. on TikTok - disposable because depending on what sort of banned content actually gets posted, you might have a lot of mental trauma and burnout that the company would really rather just replace people than deal with.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    I was talking about engineering at bytedance. Developer teams.
hotstickyballs 3y ago
Wildly successful how?
- sen 3y ago
  A little app called TikTok.
darth_avocado 3y ago
200 reports per manager means there’s a lot of ICs who are managers on IC salaries doing free added labor.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  yes, bytedance eng ICs reportedly spend more time talking across dozens of peers and coordinating.

tiffanyh 3y ago

If you have 50-200 direct reports, you’re not a “manager”. You’re effectively either a recruiter or procurement.

wahnfrieden 3y ago
then bytedance doesn't have managers
bradleyjg 3y ago
I’ve heard of companies where hundreds of people officially report to person X but there are “mentors” with 3-5 mentees that seem an awful lot like other company’s mangers. Not sure what the point is exactly.
- duskwuff 3y ago
  > Not sure what the point is exactly. A promotion to "manager" is expected to come with a pay raise. Acting as a "mentor", less so.
- betaby 3y ago
  I mean manager has at least some power, 'mentors' or 'leads' - don't. At current org. we have ~20 ICs in the department and one manager, there are clearly 3, maybe 4 folks who are more senior in experience and more influential, but no, no one perceive them as managers.
jacurtis 3y ago
I remember interviewing someone once that claimed to have 200 direct reports. I was really blunt and said "nobody has 200 direct reports". They assured me that they did. So I grilled them on the mechanics of it. If you had biweekly 1x1s with all of your DRs, you would have to do 100 per week. If 1-on-1s were your fulltime job you could at most do 80 per week (2 per hour x 40 hrs). Thats just rotating through 1x1s. That's not doing anything else. He claimed "team leads" did 1x1s, which is fine, but its hard to call them a direct report if you're not even aware of their daily work. Theres just no way you can adequately manage 200 people. As mentioned above, you are just a glorified HR person, you're no longer in engineering. I would never hire a manager below Director level that isn't themselves an individual contributor. I know its possible to have that but I wouldnt hire it, because we expect IC on our teams.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Exactly. There's a ceiling of span of control, stemming from hours in a week and maximum efficiency.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Bytedance Eng managers don’t do any 1:1s.
fencepost 3y ago
Given the grandparent was talking about Bytedance, perhaps you're the floor supervisor for dozens of disposable people watching reported or flagged content to identify porn, violence, etc. on TikTok - disposable because depending on what sort of banned content actually gets posted, you might have a lot of mental trauma and burnout that the company would really rather just replace people than deal with.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  I was talking about engineering at bytedance. Developer teams.

hotstickyballs 3y ago

Wildly successful how?

sen 3y ago
A little app called TikTok.

darth_avocado 3y ago

200 reports per manager means there’s a lot of ICs who are managers on IC salaries doing free added labor.

wahnfrieden 3y ago
yes, bytedance eng ICs reportedly spend more time talking across dozens of peers and coordinating.