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by trhway 2696 days ago
> supporting a technical decision without acting as a decision-maker.

manager is ultimately responsible for his team decisions (of course bad managers do try to scapegoat that responsibility down onto the team when the stuff hits the fan) and being responsible for the decisions can't be separated from making those decisions.
2 comments
jiveturkey 2696 days ago
you are stuck on the model of manager-as-boss. in order to create a true engineering ladder that is separate but equal to the management ladder, tech teams need to make the decisions. it is the tech lead (whatever rank he may be, let's say principal for sake of argument) that makes technical decisions.

the manager cannot override that.

unless of course, the manager is actually the boss. which invalidates the tech ladder, really.

don't confuse technical decisions (as GP stated) with management or product decisions. managers are not ultimately responsible for technical decisions in this model.

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trhway 2696 days ago
>you are stuck on the model of manager-as-boss. in order to create a true engineering ladder that is separate but equal to the management ladder

it will be equal only when the people on the technical ladder start to take hiring and firing decisions. Until that - the "parallel" ladder is just a pipe dream and the manager is the boss.

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jiveturkey 2696 days ago
hiring decisions are made by the team, not the "hiring manager". putting the responsibility of "tie breaking" votes onto the HM is a reasonable thing.

generally, employees fire themselves ...

But I mean, you're not wrong. In the environment you're thinking of, the "tech ladder" is a farce. Which is why the parent, as he said, left that company.

CircleCI has made the claim that they have a true tech ladder, and there's no reason to disbelieve them.

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wolco 2696 days ago
Hiring decisions made by the team are short sighted. They tend to hire people like themselves with similiar ideas. If you are looking for a balanced diverse team group think will not replace a hiring authority.

It is probably the best way to find someone likable by all. But bad for someone who might challenge ideas. Unless they find someone that has traits that everyone is in awe of but usually that only happens when there is a single person role with no other developers working in that layer or silo of the stack.

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mooreds 2695 days ago
> being responsible for the decisions can't be separated from making those decisions.

Disagree. This is the essence of delegation. You trust the person or team to decide the best path forward.

Do you think Tim Cook is responsible for the sum of decisions at Apple (yes)? Do you think he makes all the decisions(no)?

Good managers trust the team. If they don't, they'll repeat the team's work and ruin team morale and burn themselves out.

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