Why managers are useless

`2:23:14`

quite a bit over the years? — I would say, oh yes. And then also, oh no, in the sense that there are absolutely fundamental things both about human nature, about institutions, about programming, about business that I've changed my mind on. And then I've also had experiences that are almost even more interesting where I thought I had changed my mind and I tried it a new way, realized why I had the original opinion in the first place and then gone back to it. So it happens both ways. An example of the later part, for example, was managers at 37signals. For the longest time, I would Rail against engineering managers as an unnecessary burden on a small or even medium sized company. And at one point I actually started doubting myself a little bit. I started thinking like, do you know what? Maybe all programmers do need a one-on-one therapy session every week with their engineering manager to be a whole individual. So we tried that for a couple years where we hired some very good engineering managers

`2:24:15`

who did engineering management the way you're supposed to do it, the way it's done all over the place. And after that I thought like, no, no, I was right. This was correct. We should not have had managers. Not every programmer needs a therapy session with an engineering manager every week. We don't need these and least scheduled huddles. We don't need all these meetings. We just need to leave people the hell alone to work on problems that they enjoy for long stretches of uninterrupted time. That is where happiness is found. That's where productivity is found. And if you can get away with it, you absolutely should. Engineering management is a necessary evil when that breaks down. — What's the case for managers then? — The case for managers is that if you do have a lot of people. There's a bunch of work that kind of just crops up. The one-on-one is one example that programmers need someone to check in with. There's another idealized version that someone needs to guide the career of juniors, for example, to give them redirecting feedback and all this other stuff. And it's not that in the abstract,

`2:25:18`

I don't agree with some of those things, but in practice I've found that they often create more problems that they solve. And a good example here is can you get feedback from someone who's not better at your job than you are? You get some feedback. You can get feedback on how you show up at work. Are you being courteous to others? Are you being a good communicator? Okay, yes. But you can't get feedback on your work and that's more important. It's more important that you work under and with someone who's better at your job than you are if you wish to progress in your career. And every single programmer I've ever worked with was far more interested in progressing in their career on that metric, getting better at their craft than they were in picking up pointers that a middle manager could teach them. That's not saying that there isn't value in it. It's not saying there isn't value in being a better person or a better communicator. Of course there is all those things. But if I have to choose one or the other, I value competence higher. Like that's again, I caveat this a million times

`2:26:19`

because I know what people sometimes hear. They hear the genius asshole is just fine and that's great and you should excuse all sorts of malicious behavior if someone's just really good at what they do. I'm not saying that at all. What I am saying is that the history of competence is a history of learning from people who are better than you, and that relationship should take precedence over all else and that relationship gets put aside a bit when engineering managers introduced. Now the funny thing is this conversation ties back to the earlier things we were talking about. Most engineering managers are actually former programmers. They at least no program to some extent, but what I've seen time and again is that they lose their touch, their feel with it very, very quickly and turn into pointy haired bosses very, very quickly who are really good at checking for updates. Just seeing where we are on project A here if you need anything or we ready to deliver. Okay, yes. And also, no. Shut up, leave me the hell alone.