Yes, it sounds like managing you would be a breeze /sarcasm
Good management takes a lot of skill, and if you happen to be in a position to contribute to the strategic and tactical vision of the company, even more so. I, for one, would love to have more input business level (working on it).
I've done both and you are wrong. Managing other skilled engineers mean you need to be skilled at both engineering and at managing people. I expect those on my team to come to me with either questions about career advancement or about how to solve an hard issue, if I can't help I've failed as a manager.
Good managers are like bald eagles - few and far between. Incompetent, micro-managers who have no business being in that position and there because of "seniority" or because they're too incompetent to code - yes, 100% agree.
But there are good managers. I've been lucky enough to have them, yes.
"Good managers are like bald eagles - few and far between"
Hmm, I suppose that depends on where you live- where I am, there are literally hundreds of bald eagles that nest here annually. I see scads of them regularly and can easily find them during the nesting season whenever I want to do some bald eagle watching.
I wouldn't necessarily say that... A friend of mine is a project manager for a very large manufacturing company, and manages about 7x the number of projects that most of his peers manage with a higher success rate. I've worked with great management teams, and some horrible ones.
That work does provide value... though the salary variance between software developers from high to low is greater than managers... And I would say that few managers are worth as much as a good engineer.
Good management takes a lot of skill, and if you happen to be in a position to contribute to the strategic and tactical vision of the company, even more so. I, for one, would love to have more input business level (working on it).