[Clubber]

I've had mostly bad managers. Most of them maybe wrote code for a year or two and think they understand team dynamics and how to build software. They then burden a good running team with whatever cult processes of the day is without taking any time to understand those team dynamics and which processes fit in those dynamics. It's like a coach that calls nothing but pass plays for a run centric team and makes the 180lb guy play lineman and the 300lb guy play defensive back while thinking 20% turnover is good. No higher understanding of software development what so ever. For me and my teams, they've mostly been a burden.

A good manager protects the team from political shit rolling down hill. They understand who is good at what and allows people to thrive in what they are good at. They keep the team focused, and reward and acknowledge teams for their milestones. They explain to the team why they are doing something and what they hope to achieve while asking the team for their thoughts and adjustments. They also go to bat for the team when it's time for praise, raises and recognition. They privately criticize and publicly praise. They know when a team member is a liability and act accordingly. Most today are just ladder climbers or people who have been Peter principled or nepotism-ed into their role.

I've been in the field for nearly 30 years now. Managers in the late 90s, early 00s were way better than the lot I've experienced since.

Here's a decent summary of how we got here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6gMf5zR2c4

[joquarky]

In my experience, most contemporary managers also think they know everything now because they can write genAI prompts without realizing the AI will tend to agree with whatever they put into it.

Micromanagement has gotten really horrible in the past few years. They hire SMEs then discard everything they suggest.

[donnachangstein]

> I've had mostly bad managers. Most of them maybe wrote code for a year or two and think they understand team dynamics and how to build software. They then burden a good running team with whatever cult processes of the day

One of the most incompetent women I've ever worked with, a sociopath and pathological liar who to my knowledge never wrote a single line of code, is now a senior manager at Google inflicting pain on some unknown team.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

[Clubber]

>Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Oh, I can hate both. :) The (possibly) good news is now the free money train is gone, companies will actually have to pay attention to how their teams are working. The bad news is they might just chop off heads regardless of ability.