[bendergarcia]

There’s only the minimal amount of knowledge needed. I think a manager is no different than a soccer manager. Their role is to train the player for the role they’re best fit for. A manager has to build a team with the right skill sets. And I don’t mean just technical skill sets. You coach the player during one on ones and give feedback, and then during game time, you maybe yell strategic advice but the ball is at their feet, they’re now autonomous unit that needs to work cohesively. A good manager gets out of the way and steps in only when necessary. The more coaching and autonomy is given the more your players develop. The more they develop the more they’re capable of doing, and the more time the manager can spend thinking about higher level ideas and goals. It’s a nice feedback cycle.

I do think when the team is more technical than the manager, he has to coach the team to communicate the useful information to him. It’s his job to be able to synthesize information and to ask questions that make the team think outside the scope of their work, try to find or tease out any gotchas. Lastly a manager should be aware of the impacts their teams work will have on others and intervene when he thinks something might go wrong.

It’s always positive when the manager has a very technical background or deep knowledge of the tech stack, but they should be aware of micro managing.