[Stryder]

As an engineer turned manager, I disagree with this.

While it is absolutely essential that the person managing the domain area needs to be capable of understanding the technical details surrounding it, it's not a requirement to have to have done the exact same work as the team.

What's much more valuable and preferable to me and my team is for the person to understand how to build trust and push/prod/coach/enable folks to do their jobs in ways that are best for the team and for the company while having thought through the strategy of the direction we're heading into, and of course, take responsibility for the execution. In order to do that, being able to talk shop is important, but it's only part of the picture.

From being a good engineer to being a good manager is analogous to going from being a good runner to being a good tennis player: some relationship between the two exists (both are athletes), but it's a different set of skills.

[mmsimanga]

> While it is absolutely essential that the person managing the domain area needs to be capable of understanding the technical details surrounding it

Having been a developer who worked his way into management. I cannot see how a manager has time to get to understand the technical details. Between meetings, HR duties and one on ones there isn't much time to get to the technical detail. You need loads of uninterrupted time to get to grips with technical details. As a manager, you don't have that time.

[Stryder]

Emphasis: "capable". Mapping one concept into another and between abstraction levels is something displayed by all the strongest leaders I've met.