[simonw]

I've done this. I have friends who have done this.

I'm personally a big fan of the "Engineer/Manager Pendulum" model described by Charity Majors: https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum...

Engineers who have spent some time in management are extremely valuable. They have a better grasp on how things work, they have better leadership skills (you don't need to be in a management role to provide useful leadership within a company) and they're generally useful as all-round contributors.

There will be people out there who will mark you down for this. That reflects poorly on those people, but that doesn't mean they won't be in positions of influence where their poor judgement can still impact you negatively.

There will be plenty of other people who get it, and who will respect the choices you have made.

And you can always swing the pendulum back again later.

[convolvatron]

the only problem with this is that as an IC when your manager is really doing poorly and not grasping their job, its _really_ hard not to say 'dude wtf, that's just not right'. that can go pretty badly. so you really have to work hard to stay extra constructive and support them as if you were _their_ manager, without the authority that usually implies. and that's a heavy burden as an IC

[ldjkfkdsjnv]

This is partly why ageism exists. The longer you have worked, the more obvious the failings of your superiors are. Older workers are harder to trick into working on some project that will fail/produce no business value.

[jf22]

Conversely, older workers don't really care about what has business value and what doesn't, and if they did, they certainly care less about getting entangled in a discussion about it.

I know a lot of older workers, myself included, who don't want a seat at that table anymore.

[ed312]

As an eng manager, I always make it super clear (many times) when new engineers onboard they're always welcome to say "this doesn't make sense" ask for more details. Sometimes (maybe even often) they're right. I also enourage them to "assume good intent" from other devs and managers. Fundamentally no one manager knows everyone and no one engineer is right about everything.

[hnfong]

Yea, the problem is that bad managers likely end up being bad because they don't have this humility.

[convolvatron]

I don't think it's really a question of humility. it's more about placing the highest value on the functioning of the team. once your overriding goal is 'not looking bad', and 'escaping blame', that goal, which should be primary gets completely lost.

[VirusNewbie]

When I've had managers who have less experience than I do... I simply end up not really being managed by them. They appreciate someone who can 'manage themselves' and I don't have to deal with them coaching someone who could coach them.

I've also had peers become my manager, and vice versa, and that's the dynamic that seems quite successful.

Now if your manager is so bad that they can't recognize you are an extremely low touch employee...well, it doesn't matter the experience level, you'll be in for a bad time.

[yieldcrv]

hm, that might be happening to me, I'm an IC right now

I make it pretty clear during hiring that I don't have aspirations beyond IC anymore. Been there done that kind of vibes, I like to build. I say my value add is that I can add a vote for whatever policy or method would improve an org, people seem to like that.

But I'm currently on a team where leadership is doing everything outside of the sprint cycle, random demos in the middle of the week that nobody ever heard of before that day and so we must have all these features ready for right then, so I asked - I thought - a light question in the middle of the standup "are we using the sprint cycle?" because we have 2 week sprints and standups. and that was the.biggest.deal I've ever seen, all the leadership was convulsing amongst each other because they all have to show face to each other, instead of addressing their incompetence. "We- we- we'll take this offline!"

the meeting offline never happens. leadership can't be reached throughout the day. and the other IC's I do talk to (who don't know I've been in other non-IC roles before) act like I asked the biggest boat rocking question ever and I'm putting a target on myself.

To me, thats funny because the biggest boat rocking question would have been "why don't you do a demo from the staging branch that you're supposed to merge from dev in a schedule that's parallel and independent of the sprint" "why don't we have a staging branch, do you know what you're doing?" "why are you merging our pull requests in any order, not knowing the code base, and then yelling at us when there are merge conflicts, we should be reviewing each other's PRs"

Its actually a tolerable position,

but maybe there is a reality that I do have other jobs and maybe more comfortable about my prospects than other ICs there, and also have management experience that is impossible to hide.

[vrinsd]

This reeks of a situation where the people in the management position(s) really aren't the right people for the job and having a logical discussion or trying to explain how or why something should be done differently falls on deaf ears (or worse, antagonizes them).

Maybe I'm projecting from my own experiences but this usually is because the leadership has a "top down" mentality, "we know better because we are in this role" and your other team members who are likely less experienced than you can't tell the difference between "dissenting with evidence" vs. "being contrary".

Seems like the best plan is to keep your eyes open for other opportunities when it's no longer tolerable.

[yieldcrv]

edit: I got fired today for that

[yowlingcat]

You're a newly fired IC? In a comment several days ago about vesting schedules it sounds like you were speaking as a cofounder. If these were the same role then something smells suspicious about how your coworkers were treating you from the start IE any of these leaders and the general style of operating the company should have included your input. Moreover, I'm surprised they'd make a decision like this so flippantly as I'm not sure how it could be easy to fire a cofounder without significant legal headache to the company.

[yieldcrv]

I’ve been everything

I work for other people right now

These were not the same roles

[mousetree]

You got fired for just asking "are we using the sprint cycle?" There must be more to this story, no?

[yieldcrv]

the aforementioned guy merging PRs in random order decided that the existence of merge conflicts were all the devs fault, pinned a merge conflict on me and said I wasn't a good fit for their management style, a charitable explanation as none of us would pass an interview if we described an application development process this way

so I did in fact put a target on myself for asking anything

all happened at the end of yesterday, thought I was in the clear but they were conferring. My weekend post and reflection ironically turned out to be foreshadowing.

(hm all the time stamps are wrong, I originally posted the observation two days ago. I posted this sunday or so and got fired on monday afternoon)

[yieldcrv]

Yes, it is top down management, and comically ineffective for application development

We’ll see.

[AnimalMuppet]

> and the other IC's I do talk to (who don't know I've been in other non-IC roles before) act like I asked the biggest boat rocking question ever and I'm putting a target on myself.

That tells you much about the culture of the place. The other ICs know that you can't ask questions like that - they know that not only is the place dysfunctional as far as the sprint cycle, but it's vengefully dysfunctional - management will get you if you point out their dysfunction.

[tylerrobinson]

This is true, and it’s also true when you’re a manager. You always need to manage up and down.

[erkmene]

This is an exceptionally profound observation. IMO not having a strong ego helps and if it goes right, everyone benefits from this.