It is often expected to be defined in the expectations towards engineers at Staff+ level that people on that level are good at communications and can balance technical and business points of view.
Also, developers are often not skilled enough to hide their “lunacy” and they are sincerely open about it. Managers are more skilful at hiding malice, incompetence, pure wish for power, that makes them more harmful for a company.
Yes let’s fire all management. Remove all that harm from the organization and put a bunch of lunatics in charge who all believe without a shred of doubt that they are the smartest person to ever walk the earth.
I did not suggest to replace managers with engineers, just give an opportunity to work and be represented on more strategic level to some engineers. It can be seen as a good career progression for ICs.
There is always an assumption by engineers (especially folks early in their careers) that management is somehow “easier” and therefore it’s an easy and a reasonable career path for folks in engineering to have available to them should they choose it. It’s not easier, it’s simply different, and in many ways much more difficult. I have seen a lot of folks try and make the transition and ultimately either fail or spend a lot of time as terrible managers until they develop the skills to do it.
Management of technical teams is not a one sided operation, it’s not us vs them. You are beholden to those you manage, as well as your leaders above you (actually, more so). Sometimes the motivations of those two groups can be seen to be in conflict. You have to be an effective advocate for both. The problem I have seen with many engineers who try to make that transition, is that they think they job is to be an advocate for their engineers they manage. They forget the other 50% of their job…which is the 50% that is actually the most important to their livelihood.
