[k__]

I think, you're right.

I'd even go as far as saying management roles aren't needed at all below the C-level.

The problem is that many companies already moved their engineers and designers away from the customer, and I think this model only works with small autonomous teams that talk direktly with customers.

Most engineers don't even want to talk with customers, they just want to solve what they think is the most important technical problem and be done with it.

[baxtr]

Exactly. That mirrors my experience. Devs start saying things like “go ask the PM, I just care about code quality”

[lazide]

There is the 'only so much time in the day' issue too. If you have millions (or even 1000's if they are high touch) of customers, you'll never be able to code if you're spending your time talking to them - and it will probably be required to develop specialized skills in talking to them too.

At some point, specialization has to happen. It also has drawbacks. Small teams are often dramatically more effective than large teams for similar reasons (ownership of the problem, less communication/education overhead), but they can only scale so far.