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I'm not a scam, I like to believe, because I've always gotten good feedback from my teams. But definitely the job description is quite light and a bit handwavy, so all companies could use fewer engineering managers, not more. I myself would volunteer to go back to IC right now.

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You think someone is leaving honest feedback on those forms? It's trivial for any manager who is not a complete moron to figure out who left a bad review and retaliate as I've seen happen multiple times in my career (mostly to other ICs but sometimes entire teams)

Not only that, but even if I don't think my manager is the best guy ever, there's usually no point in giving them bad marks on those forms. It doesn't cost me anything to give good marks, and helps them play their own game.

I never criticize a manager. It has very limited upside on the off chance that a manager takes my feedback seriously. OTOH the downside is tremendous.

I don't think feedback in a corporate setting from someone you have power over can be relied on.

This. It would be suicidal to leave a manager a bad review. The only thing that works is anonymous feedback which is how Meta/Facebook is so effective at getting rid of bad managers.

Either anonymous feedback, or leaving the team or even company.

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