I don't think there is a universal answer here on "Should managers code?" (Disclosure - I'm in an organization that does expect them to code) One general obse

I don't think there is a universal answer here on "Should managers code?" (Disclosure - I'm in an organization that does expect them to code) One general observation that seems to be missed here though... If you do choose to have engineering managers code, you have to be careful about a few things: - That the managers don't confuse positional authority ("Do it because I'm the boss") with intellectual authority ("Do it because I'm right") - That the spans of control have to be smaller since the engineering manager has less time for care and feeding. In this sense, and idea that "Keeping managers hands on, and the organization flat" actually results in added hierarchy. If you have 8 employees per manager, you can have 64 engineers in 2 levels of hierarchy. If you have 4 employees per manager, you need 3 levels of hierarchy. - Is there room for superstar developers to emerge purely as individual contributors? None of these is to say that one model is any better or worse than the other. I think it's very situational.