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Comment by skeeter2020 | Hacker News Reader

skeeter2020

So as an Engineering Manager I'm msot definitely bias, though sometimes even I question my own existence, but I have 7 leads who do a lot of this BUT (a) I do similar things for them, (b) I really help them transition from the direct doers to facilitators that even I once was, (c) I take on the higher-level concerns; ex: your leads might help you by doing a pairing interview but they certainly shouldn't be filtering the 5-10 people you interview before they get involved, or they may run a stand-up or planning session but they shouldn't be making the final call around what your flavour of dev processes look like.

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> help them transition from the direct doers to facilitators

But why is this a desirable outcome? It sounds like failure to me. Or at least like retirement.

For an analogy with sports: Good athletes do not retire as early as possible to become coachs. They keep winning medals for as long as they can. When they cannot win anymore, they retire and become "facilitators" (after a significant pay downgrade).

> But why is this a desirable outcome? It sounds like failure to me.

"Why is this desirable?" is the wrong question to ask, IMO. It is not always desirable, as your analogy shows.But the higher value tasks in many business are often not achievable by a single person, like in individual sports. In those cases, it is very valuable to have a good facilitator, and no, they don't take pay cuts doing so.

The analogy does not work.

Athletes are seen perform, but not ICs at a company: nobody pays tickets to see John Smith, the TensorFlow master, at work at Google (and when they pay, like for "webinars", is to become like them, not to enjoy seeing them at work).

ICs and managers can move from domain A to domain Z, but you don't see someone playing (or coaching) football for 4 years and then when the stock is vested or whatever equivalent event indicating it is more profitable to move on, start coaching volleyball.

Also, managers, apart from some companies that have the double ladder--IC and leadership--, managers are paid more than ICs. That does not happen in sports, where the top players are certainly paid more than coaches.

The problem with this analogy is that athletes have particular physical attributes that cannot be taught or learnt, and their possession of those attributes and their ability to use them (while they're still young) is what gives them their value. The bell curve of athletic ability is a different one to that of coaching ability and there isn't a meta-bell curve that joins the two together.

Software engineering and software engineering management are both brain work that require a similar level of intelligence. It's the same bell curve if you zoom out a bit.

Also in some sports the coaches make more than the athletes, and in others the athletes make more than the coaches. You can't generalise.

Other people have answered this, but I think they've missed something. I'm not a manager because I'm a great engineer. I'm a good manager because I'm a decent engineer who has the skills necessary to be a good manager. There are plenty of engineers who should never be managers. In my opinion there are plenty of good managers who will never get to be managers because they aren't good enough engineers.

It's not that the most successful quarterback gets to become the coach. It's the running back who has insight into the strategy, the long term goals adn inter-personal dyanmics that ends up as a good manager.

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