Comment by dzonga
3 hours ago
I have worked in big tech, venture funded scale up - series D etc and yeah early stage pre-seed.
the places - where pure managers just existed i.e manager, senior engineering manager, director, vp etc - just added unnecessary overhead.
places that flourished had a manager who was also an IC - who reported directly to the CTO
which means I was 1 layer away from the CTO
Exactly my experience as well.
I worked in several BigTech that had managers excellent at talking and posturing in meetings but doing no or negative works.
The issue is that managers are hired and judged by other managers, not IC, not producers. This creates that managerial class that make themselves self-important.
The confounding factor here is the size of the company. You are saying, more than "I like managers who contribute technically (whatever that means)", that you like working for small companies.
It's as if people are saying they want a direct democracy in which every issue is voted on directly by the participants, with just one layer between the people and the "prime minister." Good luck with that when the group size exceeds 50 people, and one realizes that people don't want to vote on every issue affecting a larger society or organization.