[ozzythecat]

I saw this quite a bit in recent years at Amazon. As leadership became laser obsessed with growth (at any cost), we increasingly hired managers who could talk a big game: those that were extremely well prepared for interviews. When it came time to manage their teams, they’d leave decision making to a team vote.

Should the team have a demo at the end of a sprint? Should we have a daily standup or even have a stand up at all? Is it the senior or principal engineer’s role to motivate people who aren’t delivering?

The problem was: Amazon expects a lot. It’s not the most human friendly coporate culture in the first place. Now you mix in people who interview well but can’t walk the walk. So manager after manager, you see an SDM earning $400K a year who outsources decision making, especially tough decisions, writing road maps, and he or she wants the “team” to make every decision - even when the team is not performing or doesn’t understand the vision to begin with.

This type of manager would “lead” their team to a disaster, and often times, some poor SDE 1 or SDE 2 would somehow get thrown under the bus.