Comment by ragall
3 days ago
And furthermore, in the last decades engineers have become infantilized to such a degree that most don't want to learn to be a good manager and prefer to stay Peter Pans for ever. I believe it's an outcome of the 80's and 90's "nerd" culture because, if you ask the elders, it didn't use to be like that in the US, and it's much less prevalent in Europe (but alas that's far from being the center of the software industry).
I’d say that describes me but I don’t see it as a Peter Pan thing… I’m very technically skilled and I want to keep using those skills. I know the role I want, it’s what I often see advertised as an Architect role. But companies have an order of magnitude fewer of those roles than people management roles. I don’t know that it has to be that way, a lot of projects suffer from a lack of top level technical direction more architects could provide.
In an organisation made of mature people, some of the highly skilled people would recognise the need for them to become people managers (not Architects), and so the organisation would benefit from managers who were actually competent, having done the work themselves before.
I see complaints about companies not promoting from within their ranks, and choosing MBAs for managers, but the grim reality is that the engineers themselves don't want to step up and grow up.
You’re really stuck on the maturity thing here and I’ve got to be honest, I don’t get it. Becoming a people manager is not “growing up”, it’s simply a different job.
My skills are not in people management. My skills are technical. The organisation would not benefit from me being a people manager because I’m not good at it. I don’t understand why I should opt to do a job I am neither good at nor enjoy just for the supposed benefit of my employer. Part of “growing up” is realising that employers are replaceable and sacrificing yourself at the altar of any given employer is a fool’s errand.
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