8 ms·

Engineering management is dying

111 points by ljw1001 14y ago

Zenst 14y ago
Engineering managment fall into 10 differnt types of managment. Those that know binary and those that do not. Sadly it is extremly rare to find a manager who cant do 1/10th of your job and is actualy any good. If you advanced up the ranks then you know what to expect, when to expect it and how to deal with your staff, you learn how to deal with HR and the other boring stuff. If you are a manager and have never done the job of the people who you are managing then you know HR and the boring stuff realy well, but can so easily fail to support your staff fully. It's not realy even a fine balance, understanding what your staff do is extreemly important and at least to some degree a manager should know how to at least do aspects of there staffs job, to not know is a situation were you let your staff down or alows them to abuse you by saying it will take longer than it actualy does take. You then have those staff who are good at doing there work on email as apposed to actualy doing the work. So is Engineering managment dieing - has been for many years now but not for the reasons you outlined. I suspect that during the late 80's some marketing types migrated to IT managment and the rest is history.
michaelochurch 14y ago
I disagree that it's "dying". People management is important, and although bad managers deserve all the scorn heaped upon them, we actually would do better if there were more managers. The "flat" organizational model seems like a good thing, until you realize that what it actually means is that there's a high managerial branching factor-- sometimes 25 or higher-- which spreads managers way too thin. The problem is that this is unstable. Any manager with 25 reports is not going to be able to be fair. A subset of these reports (let's say 4-5) is going to win the boss's favor. They become de facto bosses off the other 20, but are also direct competitors with them. Now you have all the disadvantages of a 5-tree (instead of 25) but none of the advantages. Most "flat" organizations aren't egalitarian-- just lazy when it comes to figuring out a structure. Instead, they've traded official organizational hierarchy for unofficial, unstable arrangements that are actually more problematic. In a stable arrangement, your boss is your boss and you are not his competition. In an unstable and informal environment, these "de facto" bosses are also direct competition. That never works well. People management is still necessary, and good people management is extremely valuable (and, sadly, somewhat rare in many organizations). At one time, I thought otherwise, and that it was the engineers only who actually mattered to the health of an organization, but I was wrong. What has proven ineffective and wrong is the world in which people managers were given prima facie higher status, creating organizations in which the only way to progress is to move into a management role. That proved not to work, and it does seem to be on its way out.
- andrewcooke 14y ago
  you say you disagree, but then confirm what the original post said. it wasn't arguing that managers were not useful. it was saying they are decreasing in number.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    Good point. I guess I agree with the OP. I disagree that it deserves to die, or that it's a good thing that it's dying. For an example, Google has a supposedly "lightweight" system that, in practice, works quite poorly. A more traditional management structure, at a place like Google, would be an improvement. (I have no idea how Github and Valve work. Their structures might work extremely well.)
    - grandpa 14y ago
      On Github, here's an article by Ryan Tomayko, the director of engineering: http://tomayko.com/writings/management-style http://tomayko.com/writings/management-style
      - benforeva 14y ago
        Enlightening.
    - nostrademons 14y ago
      FWIW, I'm in Search Quality and I find that the "lightweight" system works quite well for myself and for many of my peers. YMMV.
      - michaelochurch 14y ago
        Google's a huge company and some sectors of it work very well, and it's a great place to work if you land in the right place. I think where Google screwed up is that it instituted a bicameral performance review system without understanding how to implement one. You can have a peer-review system or a manager-driven system. If you're doing things right, you have both and an OR-gate between them. People whose peers think they're doing great but whose managers don't recommend them can still advance, and vice versa. Conversely, to be demoted or fired, people have to fail both. The OR-gate system removes the career SPOFs that lead to degenerate behavior: managers can't exploit their position because people with strong peer support can still succeed at the company, and people don't avoid or shirk low-visibility but important projects The problem with Google's system is that it has an AND-gate for promotions and an OR-game for demotions and firings, and that's a disaster. At Google, you need strong peer reviews (which largely comes down to visibility) to get promoted, but you also need to do well on a "calibration score" stack-ranking system (i.e. Jack Welch vomited, someone put a candle in it and called it a birthday cake) that is strictly manager-driven, extremely opaque, and often deeply unfair. (Google has historically had a problem of managers who abuse the calibration score opacity, giving low ratings to make it impossible for their reports to transfer.) The downside of a manager-driven system is that managers can exploit the power, being career SPOFs. The downside of a peer review system is that people jockey for visibility and work that is important but not visible or "sexy" gets neglected. Google's AND-gate system delivers the negatives of both, but none of the advantages. Google has some really great people, and in many ways, it's a really good company, but their abortion of a "Perf" (look, even the name is imbecilic) system is not one of their strong points.
samd 14y ago
Good riddance. There is nothing essential to the role managers fill that couldn't be done by someone without authority over you. That doesn't necessarily mean removing all managers, it just means not making them your boss. Valve is proof that a flat structure can not just work, but lead to massive financial, critical, and popular success. It's also probably one of the only companies that I would be fulfilled working at that wasn't my own. There's no one to hold you back. I think the startup-minded hackers on this site can relate to that.
- Daniel_Newby 14y ago
  > There is nothing essential to the role managers fill that couldn't be done by someone without authority over you. Bosses can break ties without anybody being too pissed off that their pet idea lost the contest. Bosses can see the approaching ravine and order peolle to build a bridge before the rest of the team gets there. Valve is a poor example. Mr. Market only cares that their products are fun or interesting. Valve products don't have to conform to MIL-STD-2341 section 243 subsection 12, and be validated according to ANSI 228.3.
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    Unfortunately, my experience is more that the upper level bosses tell people to build a bridge and by the time it gets down to the floor the orders are quite different. If Valve is a poor example, what about WL Gore with their 9000 employees and $3 billion in annual revenue?
  - astrange 14y ago
    Valve products have to meet all kinds of legal requirements and pass console certification. And Steam has to not lose your payment info.
    - codesuela 14y ago
      and they've been successful thus far compared to Sony who probably have boatloads of traditional managers
  - 14y ago
big_data 14y ago
The salient point is flatter organizations along with the feedback loops that surround developers has changed the role an engineering manager plays. Drucker was correct (as usual) about the knowledge worker's primacy in the modern organization.
happywolf 14y ago
Not sure how many people here have managed people before, or at least have first hand experience in a company that has 1) too many managers, 2) too few managers.
- Spearchucker 14y ago
  I have experience of both. I ran a Microsoft practice at EDS, where there were too many managers. The highlight of that one was losing a multi-million £ contract because another project manager felt my approach didn't produce enough paper work, stopped the project and started gathering requirements, again, formally. After that I worked for a smaller software house I'd better not name, where I was responsible for 70 developers. I had no idea who was working on what because no one ever did what the status reports suggested. I resigned. The frustration in both cases was that engineering management has been solved. It's been solved in the 80's. Any attempt these days to introduce principles I learnt from books like Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions, Peopleware or Mythical Man Month got rejected, because most organisations these days have a chosen way of doing things that some manager thinks of as a personal fiefdom. Any attempt to stray from the defined approach is squashed, like, immediately.
- trimbo 14y ago
  How about the companies that have too many "managers" and not enough managers. I've experienced that as well.
  - happywolf 14y ago
    I guess those are usually called 'stakeholders' instead of 'managers'. Yes, they will try to assert their own little asses over you to show they are somebody. Painful, but it is part of work life. [shrug]
ExpiredLink 14y ago
> the widespread acceptance of Agile somewhere in a parallel universe.
- blu3jack 14y ago
  I think the author understands the depth of this acceptance of Agile when he writes: 'Today they’re surrounded a vast army of scrum-masters and evangelists, recycling (competently, mostly) the same insights, and an even larger crowd performing half-assed renditions of steps learned by rote: “Yeah, we do agile. We have a standup every day.” Many of these renditions have the professionalism, but not the passion, of a small-town talent show.' Which may be my favorite bit in the article.
sutro 14y ago
Thanks, author, for the drip of your contribution to the ocean of everything-has-to-die-for-linkbait. http://technologizer.com/2010/08/18/the-tragic-death-of-practically-everything/ http://technologizer.com/2010/08/18/the-tragic-death-of-prac...
blu3jack 14y ago
I think there's something else interesting here in the relationship between engineering managers and project managers. The author writes: "It's been undone by a continuing erosion of responsibility accorded to managers." We have introduced specialists of various sorts, with varying titles: project manager, program manager, product manager, technical project manager. The introduction of non-managerial technical-track engineering leadership roles for those smart engineers who either can't or won't be good managers has further splintered off the value-add of the engineering manager. In between team leads and C-staff there are N levels of people who's job has been highly eroded and who struggle hard to add value to their teams. I am really interested to see where this is going.
- codeonfire 14y ago
  I don't think those roles are diminishing the value of engineering managers, although I think they are useless as engineering leaders. I think engineering managers are diminishing the role of engineering managers. Many, many engineering managers are the people who got into technology with the goal of being a manager. As such, they did the minimum amount of actual engineering they could get away with, say 1-2 years. They are motivated only by the fact that engineering management is one of the highest paid professions out there. Linkedin shows some extraordinary insight into this phenomenon as anyone with a few connections can review thousands of resumes. There are managers, directors, VPs, and CTOs who have almost zero actual experience in the technical field they are supposed to be managing. For whatever extremely messed up reason, the tech industry actually supports this. So you get a whole industry of engineering managers who are not and never were engineers. It's no surprise that their role is the same as a project manager. That's all they can do. They can't steer the technical focus of the group, lead the team towards innovative ideas, or anything that even requires basic technical knowledge. If there's anything eroding the responsibilities of engineering management its the constant dumbing down of the job by the non-technical money chasers trying to get into the job.
tysont 14y ago
Besides working with engineers to define the technical direction of our products, my job as an software development manager includes things like: sourcing/hiring, long range planning (including owning P&L for my team), customer engagement, and helping to grow the careers of my engineers (among a million other things). I'm not really clear on how agile or outsourcing make any of these things irrelevant. If the point of the article is that "non technical engineering management is dying" then I think I mostly agree, but the title is misleading.
sgt101 14y ago
I'm genuinely surprised that the word accountant or the world lawyer haven't been mentioned in this discussion. From my perspective the issue isn't that engineering management has issues, it's just that mostly the management that is done is done by people with MBA's and law degrees rather than Ph.D's and Engineering degrees. The structures of modern companies arise from this - lawyers and accountants have no interest in the groups they manage, because they see them as generic interchangeable machines, rather than levers that they are developing to create and make things. They seek to optimize them, rather than nurture them, and then they seek to leave and do it again. A true engineer would want to build something of value and then use it and use it again. Most engineers opt out, the good fight is not fought, so - management is as it is.
ljw1001 14y ago
Someone made an excellent point on the blog site that one of the key drivers for a trend towards fewer engineering managers is that engineering management is getting simpler with, in his words: "the rapid the maturation of "infrastructure as code" tools and methodologies, all the *aaS magic that's out in the world right now, the "App Store" ecosystems, etc. With a small team, you can do seriously global-scale things. " You can get lot more done now with fewer people and less complexity, which means less management needed.
kabdib 14y ago
My best managers couldn't do the engineering work I do. Likewise, I can't do their work (I've tried management, it sucked for me, I won't try it again). My current boss [and one of the best I've had, btw] puts it thusly: "You solve problems with designs and lines of code. I solve problems by putting the right people in the right places." It's an over-simplification of both sides, but it contains a lot of the truth. Trouble starts when managers (who should be doing people-level stuff) get their mitts into technical stuff, especially when they start "laying down the law" without proper background. That's when they grow pointy hair on their heads, that's when the "send me weekly status report email" requests start, these days it's usually when the "Agile" drums start beating, and it's when I start looking for a new position.
CCs 14y ago
In a software company with under 50 employees you can get away with almost anything. With over 50 employees the only model that ever worked is the one described by http://manager-tools.com/ http://manager-tools.com/ : - Between 8 to 12 direct reports/manager, never more than 12. - Weekly 1-on-1 with EVERY direct report, never missed. There's a way to flatten the structure somewhat with Team Leads managing up to 6 people: part development, part people management. Even then the Engineering Manager has to be hands-on. This is how people work and it will not change anytime soon. Everybody needs weekly check-in with the company (represented by the manager) to stay in course. And everybody needs to know "who's the boss", even it it's not an official title or formal authority (think about Linus). Citing Google as a good example is not too inspired. With all the billion $s they can't come up with one more product - it's still a single trick pony. There's Search/AdWords, everything else is pretty much failure in comparison. Maps is somewhat profitable, but it was bought from somebody else and it's pocket change next to Search. Everybody profits from Android, except Google. And then there's Google+, Wave, Health, Video, Buzz, Catalog, Froogle, Orkut, ... So before trying out a Google-style manager-less chaos, make sure you have a couple billion $ in your bank account first. And yes, when somebody is not calling the shots on who gets hired in his/her team, that's not a manager. They get the task (deliver the results) without getting the tools (pick your team). How that would ever work?
- apenwarr 14y ago
  At Google managers don't decide who gets hired, but they do (more or less) get to choose which of the hired people end up on their team. I think it works pretty well actually.
  - CCs 14y ago
    And they deliver viable products... more or less. :)
- kscaldef 14y ago
  This is how people work and it will not change anytime soon. Everybody needs weekly check-in with the company (represented by the manager) to stay in course. I call bullshit. I have over a decade of experience in this industry and have only had regular 1-on-1s with my managers over the last year. Despite this, I've always been a highly valued contributor to the companies I've worked for. If anything, the last year has been the worst / most-dysfunctional of my career (although, this is probably not related to having 1-on-1s, but rather unrelated organization chaos). I have always talked regularly (i.e. daily) with my manager, but formal 1-on-1s were never part of the equation.
webjunkie 14y ago
"200-person projects headed by an Engineer" If you have 200-person projects and still call them projects, you're doing it wrong.

111 points by ljw1001 14y ago

Zenst 14y ago

Engineering managment fall into 10 differnt types of managment. Those that know binary and those that do not. Sadly it is extremly rare to find a manager who cant do 1/10th of your job and is actualy any good. If you advanced up the ranks then you know what to expect, when to expect it and how to deal with your staff, you learn how to deal with HR and the other boring stuff. If you are a manager and have never done the job of the people who you are managing then you know HR and the boring stuff realy well, but can so easily fail to support your staff fully. It's not realy even a fine balance, understanding what your staff do is extreemly important and at least to some degree a manager should know how to at least do aspects of there staffs job, to not know is a situation were you let your staff down or alows them to abuse you by saying it will take longer than it actualy does take. You then have those staff who are good at doing there work on email as apposed to actualy doing the work. So is Engineering managment dieing - has been for many years now but not for the reasons you outlined. I suspect that during the late 80's some marketing types migrated to IT managment and the rest is history.

michaelochurch 14y ago

I disagree that it's "dying". People management is important, and although bad managers deserve all the scorn heaped upon them, we actually would do better if there were more managers. The "flat" organizational model seems like a good thing, until you realize that what it actually means is that there's a high managerial branching factor-- sometimes 25 or higher-- which spreads managers way too thin. The problem is that this is unstable. Any manager with 25 reports is not going to be able to be fair. A subset of these reports (let's say 4-5) is going to win the boss's favor. They become de facto bosses off the other 20, but are also direct competitors with them. Now you have all the disadvantages of a 5-tree (instead of 25) but none of the advantages. Most "flat" organizations aren't egalitarian-- just lazy when it comes to figuring out a structure. Instead, they've traded official organizational hierarchy for unofficial, unstable arrangements that are actually more problematic. In a stable arrangement, your boss is your boss and you are not his competition. In an unstable and informal environment, these "de facto" bosses are also direct competition. That never works well. People management is still necessary, and good people management is extremely valuable (and, sadly, somewhat rare in many organizations). At one time, I thought otherwise, and that it was the engineers only who actually mattered to the health of an organization, but I was wrong. What has proven ineffective and wrong is the world in which people managers were given prima facie higher status, creating organizations in which the only way to progress is to move into a management role. That proved not to work, and it does seem to be on its way out.

andrewcooke 14y ago
you say you disagree, but then confirm what the original post said. it wasn't arguing that managers were not useful. it was saying they are decreasing in number.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Good point. I guess I agree with the OP. I disagree that it deserves to die, or that it's a good thing that it's dying. For an example, Google has a supposedly "lightweight" system that, in practice, works quite poorly. A more traditional management structure, at a place like Google, would be an improvement. (I have no idea how Github and Valve work. Their structures might work extremely well.)
  - grandpa 14y ago
    On Github, here's an article by Ryan Tomayko, the director of engineering: http://tomayko.com/writings/management-style http://tomayko.com/writings/management-style
    - benforeva 14y ago
      Enlightening.
  - nostrademons 14y ago
    FWIW, I'm in Search Quality and I find that the "lightweight" system works quite well for myself and for many of my peers. YMMV.
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
      Google's a huge company and some sectors of it work very well, and it's a great place to work if you land in the right place. I think where Google screwed up is that it instituted a bicameral performance review system without understanding how to implement one. You can have a peer-review system or a manager-driven system. If you're doing things right, you have both and an OR-gate between them. People whose peers think they're doing great but whose managers don't recommend them can still advance, and vice versa. Conversely, to be demoted or fired, people have to fail both. The OR-gate system removes the career SPOFs that lead to degenerate behavior: managers can't exploit their position because people with strong peer support can still succeed at the company, and people don't avoid or shirk low-visibility but important projects The problem with Google's system is that it has an AND-gate for promotions and an OR-game for demotions and firings, and that's a disaster. At Google, you need strong peer reviews (which largely comes down to visibility) to get promoted, but you also need to do well on a "calibration score" stack-ranking system (i.e. Jack Welch vomited, someone put a candle in it and called it a birthday cake) that is strictly manager-driven, extremely opaque, and often deeply unfair. (Google has historically had a problem of managers who abuse the calibration score opacity, giving low ratings to make it impossible for their reports to transfer.) The downside of a manager-driven system is that managers can exploit the power, being career SPOFs. The downside of a peer review system is that people jockey for visibility and work that is important but not visible or "sexy" gets neglected. Google's AND-gate system delivers the negatives of both, but none of the advantages. Google has some really great people, and in many ways, it's a really good company, but their abortion of a "Perf" (look, even the name is imbecilic) system is not one of their strong points.

samd 14y ago

Good riddance. There is nothing essential to the role managers fill that couldn't be done by someone without authority over you. That doesn't necessarily mean removing all managers, it just means not making them your boss. Valve is proof that a flat structure can not just work, but lead to massive financial, critical, and popular success. It's also probably one of the only companies that I would be fulfilled working at that wasn't my own. There's no one to hold you back. I think the startup-minded hackers on this site can relate to that.

Daniel_Newby 14y ago
> There is nothing essential to the role managers fill that couldn't be done by someone without authority over you. Bosses can break ties without anybody being too pissed off that their pet idea lost the contest. Bosses can see the approaching ravine and order peolle to build a bridge before the rest of the team gets there. Valve is a poor example. Mr. Market only cares that their products are fun or interesting. Valve products don't have to conform to MIL-STD-2341 section 243 subsection 12, and be validated according to ANSI 228.3.
- einhverfr 14y ago
  Unfortunately, my experience is more that the upper level bosses tell people to build a bridge and by the time it gets down to the floor the orders are quite different. If Valve is a poor example, what about WL Gore with their 9000 employees and $3 billion in annual revenue?
- astrange 14y ago
  Valve products have to meet all kinds of legal requirements and pass console certification. And Steam has to not lose your payment info.
  - codesuela 14y ago
    and they've been successful thus far compared to Sony who probably have boatloads of traditional managers
- 14y ago

big_data 14y ago

The salient point is flatter organizations along with the feedback loops that surround developers has changed the role an engineering manager plays. Drucker was correct (as usual) about the knowledge worker's primacy in the modern organization.

happywolf 14y ago

Not sure how many people here have managed people before, or at least have first hand experience in a company that has 1) too many managers, 2) too few managers.

Spearchucker 14y ago
I have experience of both. I ran a Microsoft practice at EDS, where there were too many managers. The highlight of that one was losing a multi-million £ contract because another project manager felt my approach didn't produce enough paper work, stopped the project and started gathering requirements, again, formally. After that I worked for a smaller software house I'd better not name, where I was responsible for 70 developers. I had no idea who was working on what because no one ever did what the status reports suggested. I resigned. The frustration in both cases was that engineering management has been solved. It's been solved in the 80's. Any attempt these days to introduce principles I learnt from books like Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions, Peopleware or Mythical Man Month got rejected, because most organisations these days have a chosen way of doing things that some manager thinks of as a personal fiefdom. Any attempt to stray from the defined approach is squashed, like, immediately.
trimbo 14y ago
How about the companies that have too many "managers" and not enough managers. I've experienced that as well.
- happywolf 14y ago
  I guess those are usually called 'stakeholders' instead of 'managers'. Yes, they will try to assert their own little asses over you to show they are somebody. Painful, but it is part of work life. [shrug]

ExpiredLink 14y ago

> the widespread acceptance of Agile somewhere in a parallel universe.

blu3jack 14y ago
I think the author understands the depth of this acceptance of Agile when he writes: 'Today they’re surrounded a vast army of scrum-masters and evangelists, recycling (competently, mostly) the same insights, and an even larger crowd performing half-assed renditions of steps learned by rote: “Yeah, we do agile. We have a standup every day.” Many of these renditions have the professionalism, but not the passion, of a small-town talent show.' Which may be my favorite bit in the article.

sutro 14y ago

Thanks, author, for the drip of your contribution to the ocean of everything-has-to-die-for-linkbait. http://technologizer.com/2010/08/18/the-tragic-death-of-practically-everything/ http://technologizer.com/2010/08/18/the-tragic-death-of-prac...

blu3jack 14y ago

I think there's something else interesting here in the relationship between engineering managers and project managers. The author writes: "It's been undone by a continuing erosion of responsibility accorded to managers." We have introduced specialists of various sorts, with varying titles: project manager, program manager, product manager, technical project manager. The introduction of non-managerial technical-track engineering leadership roles for those smart engineers who either can't or won't be good managers has further splintered off the value-add of the engineering manager. In between team leads and C-staff there are N levels of people who's job has been highly eroded and who struggle hard to add value to their teams. I am really interested to see where this is going.

codeonfire 14y ago
I don't think those roles are diminishing the value of engineering managers, although I think they are useless as engineering leaders. I think engineering managers are diminishing the role of engineering managers. Many, many engineering managers are the people who got into technology with the goal of being a manager. As such, they did the minimum amount of actual engineering they could get away with, say 1-2 years. They are motivated only by the fact that engineering management is one of the highest paid professions out there. Linkedin shows some extraordinary insight into this phenomenon as anyone with a few connections can review thousands of resumes. There are managers, directors, VPs, and CTOs who have almost zero actual experience in the technical field they are supposed to be managing. For whatever extremely messed up reason, the tech industry actually supports this. So you get a whole industry of engineering managers who are not and never were engineers. It's no surprise that their role is the same as a project manager. That's all they can do. They can't steer the technical focus of the group, lead the team towards innovative ideas, or anything that even requires basic technical knowledge. If there's anything eroding the responsibilities of engineering management its the constant dumbing down of the job by the non-technical money chasers trying to get into the job.

tysont 14y ago

Besides working with engineers to define the technical direction of our products, my job as an software development manager includes things like: sourcing/hiring, long range planning (including owning P&L for my team), customer engagement, and helping to grow the careers of my engineers (among a million other things). I'm not really clear on how agile or outsourcing make any of these things irrelevant. If the point of the article is that "non technical engineering management is dying" then I think I mostly agree, but the title is misleading.

sgt101 14y ago

I'm genuinely surprised that the word accountant or the world lawyer haven't been mentioned in this discussion. From my perspective the issue isn't that engineering management has issues, it's just that mostly the management that is done is done by people with MBA's and law degrees rather than Ph.D's and Engineering degrees. The structures of modern companies arise from this - lawyers and accountants have no interest in the groups they manage, because they see them as generic interchangeable machines, rather than levers that they are developing to create and make things. They seek to optimize them, rather than nurture them, and then they seek to leave and do it again. A true engineer would want to build something of value and then use it and use it again. Most engineers opt out, the good fight is not fought, so - management is as it is.

ljw1001 14y ago

Someone made an excellent point on the blog site that one of the key drivers for a trend towards fewer engineering managers is that engineering management is getting simpler with, in his words: "the rapid the maturation of "infrastructure as code" tools and methodologies, all the *aaS magic that's out in the world right now, the "App Store" ecosystems, etc. With a small team, you can do seriously global-scale things. " You can get lot more done now with fewer people and less complexity, which means less management needed.

kabdib 14y ago

My best managers couldn't do the engineering work I do. Likewise, I can't do their work (I've tried management, it sucked for me, I won't try it again). My current boss [and one of the best I've had, btw] puts it thusly: "You solve problems with designs and lines of code. I solve problems by putting the right people in the right places." It's an over-simplification of both sides, but it contains a lot of the truth. Trouble starts when managers (who should be doing people-level stuff) get their mitts into technical stuff, especially when they start "laying down the law" without proper background. That's when they grow pointy hair on their heads, that's when the "send me weekly status report email" requests start, these days it's usually when the "Agile" drums start beating, and it's when I start looking for a new position.

CCs 14y ago

In a software company with under 50 employees you can get away with almost anything. With over 50 employees the only model that ever worked is the one described by http://manager-tools.com/ http://manager-tools.com/ : - Between 8 to 12 direct reports/manager, never more than 12. - Weekly 1-on-1 with EVERY direct report, never missed. There's a way to flatten the structure somewhat with Team Leads managing up to 6 people: part development, part people management. Even then the Engineering Manager has to be hands-on. This is how people work and it will not change anytime soon. Everybody needs weekly check-in with the company (represented by the manager) to stay in course. And everybody needs to know "who's the boss", even it it's not an official title or formal authority (think about Linus). Citing Google as a good example is not too inspired. With all the billion $s they can't come up with one more product - it's still a single trick pony. There's Search/AdWords, everything else is pretty much failure in comparison. Maps is somewhat profitable, but it was bought from somebody else and it's pocket change next to Search. Everybody profits from Android, except Google. And then there's Google+, Wave, Health, Video, Buzz, Catalog, Froogle, Orkut, ... So before trying out a Google-style manager-less chaos, make sure you have a couple billion $ in your bank account first. And yes, when somebody is not calling the shots on who gets hired in his/her team, that's not a manager. They get the task (deliver the results) without getting the tools (pick your team). How that would ever work?

apenwarr 14y ago
At Google managers don't decide who gets hired, but they do (more or less) get to choose which of the hired people end up on their team. I think it works pretty well actually.
- CCs 14y ago
  And they deliver viable products... more or less. :)
kscaldef 14y ago
This is how people work and it will not change anytime soon. Everybody needs weekly check-in with the company (represented by the manager) to stay in course. I call bullshit. I have over a decade of experience in this industry and have only had regular 1-on-1s with my managers over the last year. Despite this, I've always been a highly valued contributor to the companies I've worked for. If anything, the last year has been the worst / most-dysfunctional of my career (although, this is probably not related to having 1-on-1s, but rather unrelated organization chaos). I have always talked regularly (i.e. daily) with my manager, but formal 1-on-1s were never part of the equation.

webjunkie 14y ago

"200-person projects headed by an Engineer" If you have 200-person projects and still call them projects, you're doing it wrong.