The engineer–manager pendulum is breaking | Hacker News Reader

The engineer–manager pendulum is breaking

modernleader.is

30 pointsmooreds8 comments

As someone who has worked as an EM and an IC, I will say this. The only time the line between the two roles is blurred is when companies purposely blur it. Basically an EM role where the pressure is to get "hands on" and code. I always point out that what they are describing is closer to a Tech Lead, not an Engineering Manager.

Outside of those things there's no blur. The article is wrong it's not getting this way because of AI or because of remote work. It's this way because companies are purposefully misunderstanding the EM role.

Well said! I wonder if it is like this in the mechanical / electrical engineering space or if the Math n Physics is scary enough to keep the riff-raff out. We've made it too easy for the non-engineering folks and now they're getting involved and disrupting our flow of work. Just like the author (a psych major who's never written a line of production code in life).

The writing gives the impression of someone speaking about hands-on technical work without a clear understanding of what that actually entails. After reviewing the author’s public LinkedIn profile, it appears their background may be more aligned with product and process management than with hands-on engineering, which could explain the disconnect.

> Leaders can now validate assumptions, explore design directions, parse logs, and reason about architecture faster than ever ... You can be technical today without being deep in code every hour of the day.

No they can't. I've never seen this go well. The use of AI in this way will merely start a conversation with your devs and if you insist on your opinions based on what the AI told you you're going to lose massive amounts of trust with your team.

> ICs can operate at a higher strategic level without getting bogged down in mechanical work.

ICs have always been forced to be strategic with their architecture and specific technical decisions only to get the credit taken away from them by upper management when it goes well and play defense in the blame game when it doesn't go so well. Nothing has changed.

I have unfortunately have had an encounter with a product guy who coded an entire UI for a feature with ChatGPT - then told me it was almost finished, I just need to fix a couple bugs and hook up some API calls.

He got very angry with me when I told him that I'd need to rewrite the thing from scratch.

The nerve of that product guy!

I’ve always been vocal about this ... engineers are at the core of our business because they build and ship. Everyone else, myself included as an engineering manager exists to support them in doing exactly that. We don’t create value by holding meetings, drafting roadmaps, or removing blockers ... those are simply the means to an end. We create value when a product is built and shipped. It really is that simple.

Surely you mean you create value once your customers use your product to achieve their purposes...

Complete AÍ garbage. Not even worth trying to debunk the arguments made here.

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