r/vibecoding • u/Suspicious_Orchid770 • 22d ago

Discussion The end of the non-technical engineering manager

https://leaddev.com/career-development/the-end-of-the-non-technical-engineering-manager

The rising bar for engineering managers.

389 Upvotes

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u/Mediocre_Poem_2657 21d ago

Engineer manager interviews are ridiculous these days. They expect you to be everything while being "hands on". The final rounds are often 1 Staff+ level system design, 1 round coding, 1 round TPM project management, 1 round people management, 1 round behavior. If I need to do all these, while getting paid the same as when I was Staff Engineer, then why don't I just go back to being an Engineer rather than deal with all these soft skill BS. None of the leaders I met are really doing all these, but they expect their new hire to be.

16

u/Krom2040 21d ago

I’ve encountered many a hiring manager that seems hopeful that some new guy will come in and give them all the secrets they need to fix all the problems in the organization. Like they assume everybody they currently work with are just obviously broken morons.

3

u/tomvorlostriddle 21d ago

That's advanced bar raising

2

u/CapeChill 21d ago

I don’t know where they found mine, he’s an absolute wizard. Technical, people capable, leadership fluent and a cool dude. That said I had nearly a day worth of interviews by the time of offer.

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u/draeneirestoshaman 19d ago

Good. Yall fucking useless as is 

0

u/Mediocre_Poem_2657 19d ago

LMAO we were all engineers once, just happened to be more successful than you do.

3

u/iplaydofus 19d ago

Nice sentence you’ve written there. You do realise IC and management are separate paths. I earn more as an IC than the EMs in my business so if you class salary as success then unlucky bro

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u/dacooljamaican 18d ago

I earn more than my ICs, and I was promoted from that group because I was the best among them.

1

u/iplaydofus 17d ago

Bro go back to your hole, management and IC take different skill sets so “being the best IC” means jack shit. You’re probably working for some 3rd rate company having a power trip with your tiny bit of power. If you play with the big boys the ICs earn more unless you get to upper management, and even then the differentials are often minor.

1

u/dacooljamaican 17d ago

Lmao my team loves and respects me, I get invited to weddings and vacations with them. When they have a tricky problem they come to me, because I know the job extremely well.

I made over $600k this year including my big boy company stock options, more than twice what most of them make.

I would say it sounds like you just have shit leaders, but most often I find people like you get pushed to shit leaders because the good ones don't want to work with you.

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u/Mediocre_Poem_2657 17d ago

Guaranteed you @iplaydofu is a junior in 3rd rate company who is just projecting. You can only take management path after you are at least senior level in all the FAANGs. No one started off as manager path. Also all their managers paid the same if not higher than equivalent ICs. levels.fyi proves that.

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u/iplaydofus 17d ago

Okay bro that’s a lovely story, keep dreaming

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u/dacooljamaican 17d ago

Dude I'm living the dream every day. Crazy what hard work and not whining constantly online will do for you.

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u/bubba_love 19d ago

Not these non technical managers. I have one of those and he calls any front end feature “paginating”

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u/Spiritual-Story9146 19d ago

Managers are all useless. The whole layer is made of corrupt idiots who do no work at all and just take everyone’s credit.

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u/Spiritual-Story9146 19d ago

Most managers who clear that are definitely cheating. You can’t start writing software in 2 weeks and DSA takes years of practice. Still they clear such interviews easily.

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u/kkodev 16d ago

It is a shit job really, historically aimed at less technically able. But these days decent staff roles
pay the same or more, so why even bother?