[lmm]

> Do engineers know when to structure the company in a matrix organizational structure versus a foundational organizational structure? Do engineers know how to apply organizational behavior techniques to diagnose and resolve group psychology issues like demotivated teams or poor product quality?

The better question is, do MBAs?

> How much in-the-weeds technical work do you think top management is doing at engineering companies anyway?

You don't have to be in the technical weeds to be making decisions where technical considerations are important.

[flaminHotSpeedo]

I think your comment is circling the crux of the issue. Technical individual contributors see the results of bad management decisions and attribute blame to an easy, but tangible target (MBA's), which crucially has a "solution" that appeals to them: ignore the bean counters and let me do my own thing.

Good leaders don't need to be technical, though it helps, and just as an engineering degree doesn't guarantee a good IC, an MBA doesn't guarantee a good leader. But it's less appealing to complain about bad employees, and also it's easy to forget that even good employees (on both "sides" of the IC/management divide) can make bad decisions if there's incomplete info and someone has to make a judgement call