[hungryforcodes]

A cynical or experienced view? I'm in management and have seen good managers and bad, but the bad ones are quite a few. To address your points, managers with a non technical background:

- Cannot identify blind spots that keep you at peak performance, only another engineer with more experience (tech lead or senior) can do so. They can only identify behaviors that make them look bad or are inconvenient when viewed from the point of view of their peers -- other managers.

- A non technical manager has literally no idea what is valuable to delivering complex technical work. They can only guess, and often guess badly. Again only a senior or tech lead with experience could do this.

- How could a non technical manager motivate any engineer, without an understanding of their difficulties, problems and ways to solve these problems practically? I just don't buy it. "Let's do overtime on the weekend guys..."

- Managers should not be involved with people's personal problems. I've met so many managers that are extroverted and managing sensitive introverted teams, that all they ultimately do is the equivalent of hammer on the aquarium glass. Remember that sign in the pet store: "Don't tap on the glass"? It's true of technical teams that are of a totally different temperament than managers.

[jrvarela56]

> A cynical or experienced view? I'm in management and have seen good managers and bad, but the bad ones are quite a few. To address your points, managers with a non technical background:

Thanks for the detailed breakdown and no name calling :D

> Cannot identify blind spots that keep you at peak performance, only another engineer with more experience (tech lead or senior) can do so. They can only identify behaviors that make them look bad or are inconvenient when viewed from the point of view of their peers -- other managers.

Given you have different levels of skill in the team, a good manager would convince you and the other teammate to help each other out with the learning. Lubricating these interactions given everyone has responsibilities is not always trivial. I'm less experienced on the politics but I believe what you're saying about politics distorting incentives. I'm conveniently side-stepping this issue bc it applies to all positions in a corporate structure.

> A non technical manager has literally no idea what is valuable to delivering complex technical work. They can only guess, and often guess badly. Again only a senior or tech lead with experience could do this.

A non technical manager can know very well what's valuable to the product/company. That they don't believe their team on the value of a specific piece of technical work to enable that seems like something else is at play here (lack of trust).

> How could a non technical manager motivate any engineer, without an understanding of their difficulties, problems and ways to solve these problems practically? I just don't buy it. "Let's do overtime on the weekend guys..."

By reminding/reframing/convincing re:impact their work has on their team, personal growth, customers, society or personal preferences. Doesn't have to be only technical; they can help you deal with any self-inflicted discomfort regardless of the subject matter.

> Managers should not be involved with people's personal problems. I've met so many managers that are extroverted and managing sensitive introverted teams, that all they ultimately do is the equivalent of hammer on the aquarium glass. Remember that sign in the pet store: "Don't tap on the glass"? It's true of technical teams that are of a totally different temperament than managers.

Agree to disagree. I've had great conversations with peers when/if we're open to talking about non-work stuff - both ways not just me 'giving advice'. It's not binary and depends on the relationship. A skilled manager can care for reports beyond work, create genuine bonds and be respectful when they have not been given an opening to engage in these subjects.

[BackBlast]

> A non technical manager can know very well what's valuable to the product/company. That they don't believe their team on the value of a specific piece of technical work to enable that seems like something else is at play here (lack of trust).

Trust is a difficult commodity to build, a lot of company culture issues stem from lack of trust. It's particularly key to the manager/team relationship.

When you have a non-technical manager directly over technical teams it's particularly difficult to build trust. People, emotionally, want to have someone really understand them. Someone who doesn't, at a fundamental level, understand the actual work you're doing is going to be at a disadvantage as the work is crux of the purpose of the interaction.

Not to say that it is impossible, someone with well above average people reading and listening skills can still build that trust and get it. But it's definitely going to be more difficult than someone who really knows the turf.