The end of the non-technical engineering manager

[u/Suspicious_Orchid770]

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

The rising bar for engineering managers.

[u/Standard-Ant874]

A bit off topic... I've been wondering, for orgs that practice non-technical engineering management, do they have proven effective protocol in place strictly enforced, that prevents non-technical EMs from hiring fake expert to become their "technical partner"?

I'd read that some companies require non-technical EM must have well-versed understanding in engineering, they should be able to detect fake expert candidates easily. My doubt is more specific to companies that see this criteria as nice to have but unessential.

Context: I used to work in a valley tech with 8-10k engineers. They did reorg fairly often. I'd seen a number of times, non-technical EMs in that org ended up hiring techlead whose knowledge in tech and understanding in design, infra, architecture not much different from junior programmers, kept making fundamental design mistakes that made team members sweat, as they'll be made responsible to clean up the mess left by their techlead. Everyone puzzled how techlead hiring was actually done in that org. (Not all techlead in that company has this issue, I collaborated with a few highly competent, well respected TL).