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Good Engineering Managers Just "Don't Exist"
hype7 writes "Here's a provocative article; the VP of engineering of a Sequoia-backed startup in Silicon Valley makes the case that good engineering managers aren't just hard to find — that they basically don't exist. The crux of his argument? The best engineers get all the benefits of being leaders, but without needing to take on the rather painful duties of management. So they choose not to move up. Compare this to the engineers who aren't as strong, and use the opportunity to move up as a way to get their voice heard."
I have seen this in three multiple previous jobs.
The manager was awesome and everyone on the team loved him. The product the team produced became a hit and all the career managers in the organization wanted that on their list of successes. They played political games (re-org) and stole the project from under the good manager. The team withered away and all the best people left under the new leadership. The product carried on the previous momentum for a while and then joined a whole list of other mediocre products the company produced.
True, in 1970, they were paid about 50x the average salary. That's highly paid!
Of course today, they are paid 350 to 535 times the average salary. That's obscene!
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Actually, I've seen many situations where the top person (or people) on a team make more than the manager. It's actually pretty common in tech.
That sort of thing is easy when the company is small. Once you have more than 20 or 30 developers, it starts getting hard. Fred Brooks also discussed that topic (at least, a very similar topic).
:)
If you can find a way to make it scale, then let us know
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."