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by kayodelycaon
1598 days ago
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> So, should managers code, design, and in other ways contribute in some way to production code or design? Sure, I don't see any reason they can't. Just understand the boundaries and stay out of other people's way. Has this person been a manager? The amount of time is takes to keep up to date enough to make a net positive contribution is non-trivial. Doing this on top of management responsibilities? Good luck. The communication between a development team and the rest of the company is complicated. Navigating this requires both a skillset completely orthogonal to writing software and a lot of time. |
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The first is the team lead manager. This team has 3-5 people on it, and the tech lead codes small features and pairs with other developers, and has a coaching role. Their people management skills are relatively low weight, and their managers, whether senior managers or directors, are doing the heavy lifting on how to manage career progression and run a department, but they will be intimately involved with the progression of the team's goals.
The second is the multi-team or large team manager. This manager has 6-15 reports and does not code or codes sparingly at best. However, they are responsible for low level strategy and tactics.
The third is the barely-technical people manager. This person has over 20 reports, and is in a reporting capacity and people managing capacity and the technical leads are delegated to handle strategic and tactical capacity. The manager is responsible for more holistic thinking and supporting the tech leads, Or the organization is light on career development.
I have seen all three happen. The key to understanding your responsibilities as a manager is to understand the organizational expectations. When you ask as a manager if you should code, the real question is what are you trading for that?