[vlovich123]

> Most are about average

Surely you meant to communicate something different here and not a mathematical impossibility.

Do you mean most fall within 1 standard deviation of the average? That still means half the managers you encounter would be below the average quality assuming a normal distribution (which it’s clearly not - skills tend to follow the power law).

Most engineers are actually decidedly quite bad at software development itself for what it’s worth. The equivalent of a first level line manager is typically a first level engineer (not always but usually). Good managers get promoted to manage managers / multiple teams which dilutes their qualities (they now have to train other managers to be good). So think about whether you’d put a very junior engineer in charge of a project and what kind of results that might have, especially since if the manager is actually good they’ll be promoted away whereas an IC who’s hood is simply given more responsibility on the project but the role doesn’t change too much.

[rco8786]

Really unclear what point you are trying to make. But yes my intention of using the word "about" average and not "exactly" average was to communicate that most people hover somewhere around the middle. If you want to get really specific and get into stddevs, be my guest.

[vlovich123]

"Most people" cannot be above average. That's an information free statement.