[raw_anon_1111]

Well in my 30 year career across 10 jobs - everything from startups to BigTech and now working full time at a consulting company, I’ve found line level managers to be absolutely useless - not soulless.

When I was being recruited as a strategic early hire, one of my requirements was that I must report to the CTO/director and not a line level toothless engineering manager.

Also, every meaningful raise I’ve gotten has only come when I was reporting to someone above a line level manager.

[apple4ever]

You've had bad luck. I get it. But good managers like myself exist.

[raw_anon_1111]

It’s not “bad managers” - it’s “powerless managers”. If you are a line level manager, you don’t control budgets, company wide re-org decisions, or really anything that I care about - which is mainly “how much money do I get in exchange for my labor” and “do I need to come into an office?”. Those are all decisions above your head

[johnnyanmac]

I don't expect them to move the world for me. But I don't equate "powerless managers" with "useless managers". If they feel like they do what they can within their means, I'd say that's a good manager.

>really anything that I care about - which is mainly “how much money do I get in exchange for my labor”

That's fair. Though I didn't choose my domain for the reasons you work. So I cared more about managers who felt like they were empathetic and invested their time to help me succeed. Not whoever can have me climb the corporate ladder the fastest.