[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 ?

[afavour]

Has it not occurred to you that the job of manager has changed in this time? The people managers I am friends with bemoan spending half of their lives doing paperwork for performance reviews. It wasn’t always that way. To be a project manager is spend half your life in JIRA workflows.

I don’t want to become a manager not just because I’m not good at it, but also because it doesn’t look even slightly enjoyable. Why would I do it?

[ragall]

> Has it not occurred to you that the job of manager has changed in this time?

Maybe, but that still doesn't answer the question. In my many years working for a FAANG in Europe, almost all good managers were non-US, even in the sister teams on the US side. On the US side, the best managers I've worked with were, with a few exceptions, first generation immigrants from India, Iran, Lebanon or various European countries.