[Test0129]

Here's the thing. At the end of the day all of the "complexity and nuance" of running a business doesn't matter. The only way you even get to execute on that is if you're flanked by good engineers.

All roads lead to the engineer. Bad managers can be worked around. Mindless PMs can be worked around. But if every engineer at apple suddenly stopped working there would be real economic consequences. If managers and PMs stopped working they'd be replaced by engineers who are by and large more capable at adaptation anyway. Engineers should hold all the power. In most orgs management exists to prevent what is effectively an artificial union forming among engineers. Most, I'd argue even 99%, of engineers do not want to be sitting in meetings and spending 9 hours a day building CRUD. Without the guy cracking the whip over your head you wouldn't. I wouldn't. Anyone wouldn't. The power dynamic favors managers - hence all the hate.

MBAs take a lot of flak because much like the kid engineer coming out of school who believes he's legitimately God's gift to man the MBA does the same. The difference? The MBA controls your salary, whether you keep your job, whether you get your job, the direction of the company, the marketing of the product, the features that will be worked on, the finances of the company, etc. The MBA holds legitimately all power that is not engineering. As such, by generalizing and blaming "the MBA" you are more right than wrong on who is the real problem. I believe most engineers should go back for their MBA. Not to get better at business but to understand their enemy. An entire career is boiled down to a few excel formulas.

Do you know what makes me happy? Not even knowing my manager exists. Not even knowing my PM exists. In my a little over 10 year career I can name two managers and one PM that actually made a fundamental difference to me. I'd be infinitely happier if PMs and managers were replaced by robots that let me do my job and enjoy what I do. Instead, even something as trivial as "I'd like an extra day to optimize this because I can see it having problems under load" needs to be "scoped" and "talked about", then it needs to be "put into a future sprint", then it needs to be "pointed", "tagged", "etc". This is borderline tyranny to someone who is creative. Only a spreadsheet monkey sees value in this nonsense because at the end of the day I'm right (because I built it) but I won't be given time to do it until it breaks (because the MBA), when it does I will be on pagerduty and probably hearing about it (from my manager), and then I will need to ask for time and a meeting will be called to discuss and do JIRA nonsense (by the PM). You see? As an engineer it's always my fault. Even when I'm right. Who are the people who will arrive at my desk to blame me? Them.

[drstewart]

> If managers and PMs stopped working they'd be replaced by engineers who are by and large more capable at adaptation anyway.

It's funny how these ultracapable genius engineers don't just start their own company free of these bullshit manager and PM roles and just steamroll the competition, isn't it?

[feoren]

A few reasons:

1. They would rather be building cool things than doing all the other things involved in running a company. Nobody said managers are doing literally nothing, just that they're generally not very good and they really don't deserve or earn the authority they have. Their role is a support role, like a typist or a document manager or something. They should be considered basically secretaries to the engineers, so your question is "why don't the engineers all go become secretaries then?". Not to bash secretaries, but rather to give you the point that their authority comes not from what they do, but rather from the caste they were born into and/or the college they graduated from.

2. Many of them would go and start their own (likely very successful) companies, if doing so weren't a gated community open only to either (A) those who already have lots of connections and lots of family money to fall back on as a safety net if they fail, and (B) those who are willing to subsist on dry Top Ramen and live out of their car for years while they devote 100% of their time to their startup. Most of the good engineers out there have responsibilities like kids and/or mortgages, because it takes a long time to become a good engineer. And most people aren't born into the "business caste" that starts companies and becomes high-level managers at companies in the US.

3. They do. When it does happen, they become wildly successful and do completely fucking steamroll the competition, because the competition actually truly veritably is garbage run by chucklefucks who are only there because they were born into the Business Caste.

[icedchai]

The real reason is a lot of us are risk adverse. We’ve seen startups go bad many times. It seems easier to work a mediocre but relatively high paying job, save, and invest.

[Test0129]

They do. In fact, the top 3 tech companies started this way. So I guess you're right!

[scombridae]

Avoid confusing sales with managers. Most "genius engineers" still need money, and they still need that fabled creature known as the salesman who can convince someone to pay for a software system he doesn't need.

[candiddevmike]

They don't want engineers to unionize because the first thing they'd do is pause feature work and fix all the tech debt.

[leeoniya]

> fix all the tech debt.

lol, okay, maybe before you have a couple $50k/yr revenue customers that rely on that legacy/tech-debt to run their business.

ask windows/office devs or linux kernel devs how often they get to fix all that tech debt.

[titzer]

> much like the kid engineer coming out of school who believes he's legitimately God's gift to man

(other people doing stuff, inducing mild amounts of accountability)

> This is borderline tyranny to someone who is creative.

> most engineers should go back for their MBA. Not to get better at business but to understand their enemy.

That's an incredibly adversarial attitude severely lacking in self-reflection and empathy. It's really tough to work with people wound so tight. Having been a manager, if I were yours, I'd be working on helping you grow up a bit, and if that didn't work, I'd be helping you find a different role that was more suited to your...ahem...creativity. A role far away.

[Test0129]

It's weird you assume I openly post this where people know my face.

I play ball at work because if I play ball I continue to make enough money where at the end of the day I don't care. I'm fully capable of reading a room and know full well the consequences of stepping out of line. Frankly a manager "helping you find empathy" strikes me as a form of indoctrination.

But thank you for the deep psychological analysis. Frankly I'm glad you're not my manager because the saccharin nature of your psuedo intellectual post would probably have me quitting anyway. It's always the "empaths" who are the first to fire the shots across the bow in the face of valid (albeit direct) criticism.

[titzer]

I'm only going by the words that you wrote. You come hot out of the gate and people's reaction to that validates your internal drama where everyone's an enemy. But all we're talking about is your feelings at this point, so I'll just stop because that tangle really does escape me.

[Victerius]

You are arrogant and, more importantly, wrong.

[Test0129]

Thanks for the useful reply. I really enjoyed your deep analysis of my post.