There's an unfortunate distinction between people who are very curious and possibly have formal training in a technical field, and those who do it because it ma

There's an unfortunate distinction between people who are very curious and possibly have formal training in a technical field, and those who do it because it makes lots of money. Orthogonally, there are project managers (PMs) and architects (they need an acronym) who either A. recently had or B. distantly had serious technical chops, and those who C. were the latter of the first sentence. C'est la vie; the anti-pattern of the corporate machine operating with the efficiency of the Peter principle. Perhaps the only and irreducible way to discern A. above is to work with someone else on something meaningful for longer than the pop quiz bullshit of 20-30 minute technical interviews. Possibly, project managers can be effective without technical knowledge if they both check their egos and communicate efficiently and effectively to reduce and consolidate external comms. Architects also need to defer to people digging away at the problem rather than mandating a vision or some equally ineffective pretend work. Architects and PMs can be extremely effective if they know their limitations, are honest, understand human nature and the natures of their team, and how to manage external expectations.