[rramadass]

The comment he/she was replying to said;

>Engineers are difficult people to manage.

This is an atrocious blanket judgement if i ever saw one. And was quite rightly called out for it. I too have argued elsewhere that most Managers are only too eager to blame the Engineers when they themselves are clueless/incompetent.

All the negative tropes like a) Engineers are socially inept b) Engineers are difficult c) Engineers do not understand Business etc. etc. need to die. For too long has "Management" ascribed to themselves all the virtues/wisdom of Business and treated "Engineering" as "Simple Workers" who need to be "Managed".

[mcntsh]

Maybe I should have clarified. Engineers are difficult to manage (in my experience) because they're smart and have leverage in their role; it's not a simple manager -> worker-bee relationship. It's nothing negative.

[karmakaze]

Missing that point that it's not a simple worker-bee relationship and doing it is the job of the manager, not a fact about engineers.

What the manager should be doing is aligning the direction of higher-ups and developers. This takes being able to clearly understand and communicate interests and needs two-ways.

As an IC I've always been vocal about the technical needs of product or platform development as it grows and expands capabilities. There's no chance higher-ups would know these things without being exposed to situations as they develop. At the same time I have to learn about the longer-term product direction and how to sequence development, and in particular research that can uncover the unknown unknowns heading in that direction. I'm lucky to have access to information and background that lets me make good guesses. This is the kind of process that the manager should be creating and refining.

The problem is that too many 'technical' managers behave as middle managers, merely allocating developers to teams by skillset (or worse title Sr/Jr Frontend/Backend) to projects picked by product managers and let project managers try to make it work. Instead of remembering all those times as an engineer that a timely refactor would have saved the company so much money and pain and getting key ones 'in the books', they take the easy route agreeing with the hand that feeds and only aim to satisfy one side's requirements without trying to fully understand the other's.

[rramadass]

Right; more akin to "Herding Cats" :-). But that's what allows each of them to display their aptitude and brilliance their own way. A light touch is the magic recipe. If you look at exceptional Engineers, almost always they were not obedient/yes-men but their own masters and their Managers had the good sense to allow them the freedom to do their own thing within very loose bounds.

[fuzzfactor]

When the cats are truly technically qualified and naturally self-productive, the only way to herd them is by a leader whom is more so.

Otherwise the team will never come close to benefitting from very much of the whole members' combined abilities.

Outstanding qualifications and productivity will find a way to be successful even with a bozo executive, and it will be OK for shareholders, some may even think it's the best thing they've ever seen.

Little did they know the possibilities that could have been if there was a leader who could have actually herded the valued cats into the happy pastures where they could really spread out.