[stymaar]

I'm not totally convinced by OP's whole point, but I want to point out an issue with this argument of yours:

> lot of talented lead engineers I know are terrible people managers, or ineffective project managers.

A lot of people who can read are also terrible manager, but that's not an argument to put illiterate people in charge. Not every engineer has what it takes to be a good manager, and that's fine since you don't need this many manager anyway, but I'd argue that for a management jobs, understanding the craft of the people you're managing is as important as literacy, because the most important role of a manager is make decisions and you cannot make good decisions about things you don't understand.

That being said, engineering is only half the takes in software, the other half being Design and you cannot have a manager that is merely an engineer without design skills (otherwise your product is going to have the user-friendliness of Arch Linux).

[harimau777]

The problem, as I've experienced it, is that companies don't try to determine what engineers also have managment aptitude. They simply promote whatever engineers are good at writing code.

[ragall]

And furthermore, in the last decades engineers have become infantilized to such a degree that most don't want to learn to be a good manager and prefer to stay Peter Pans for ever. I believe it's an outcome of the 80's and 90's "nerd" culture because, if you ask the elders, it didn't use to be like that in the US, and it's much less prevalent in Europe (but alas that's far from being the center of the software industry).

[afavour]

I’d say that describes me but I don’t see it as a Peter Pan thing… I’m very technically skilled and I want to keep using those skills. I know the role I want, it’s what I often see advertised as an Architect role. But companies have an order of magnitude fewer of those roles than people management roles. I don’t know that it has to be that way, a lot of projects suffer from a lack of top level technical direction more architects could provide.

[ragall]

In an organisation made of mature people, some of the highly skilled people would recognise the need for them to become people managers (not Architects), and so the organisation would benefit from managers who were actually competent, having done the work themselves before.

I see complaints about companies not promoting from within their ranks, and choosing MBAs for managers, but the grim reality is that the engineers themselves don't want to step up and grow up.

[afavour]

You’re really stuck on the maturity thing here and I’ve got to be honest, I don’t get it. Becoming a people manager is not “growing up”, it’s simply a different job.

My skills are not in people management. My skills are technical. The organisation would not benefit from me being a people manager because I’m not good at it. I don’t understand why I should opt to do a job I am neither good at nor enjoy just for the supposed benefit of my employer. Part of “growing up” is realising that employers are replaceable and sacrificing yourself at the altar of any given employer is a fool’s errand.

[ragall]

Rather, you're the one stuck thinking this is about yourself. If you read more attentively, you'd see I carefully phrased my reply to avoid mentioning you.

You say you aren't good at it, but have you ever tried ? I suppose not, so you'll never know if you'd have been good at it. This is not a quality that comes innate, it's something that one must learn and cultivate.

The important thing here is the observation that engineering companies used to be filled with engineers that were both *technically competent* and *willing to become a manager*. That's much rarer nowadays. Why ?