> We don't need weekly 1:1s to check on feelings.

As a manager that does weekly 1:1s, I agree with that statement. But I do need 1:1s to check on progress, uncover blockers that people haven’t surfaced on their own, make continuous small decisions, offer support, assess performance, collect status information for my manager, and last but not least give employees the opportunity to share feelings frequently. They do, and it’s not very often, but it’s important to have a dedicated place for it otherwise devs often don’t share until damage is being done.

I’ve also watched devs who didn’t have weekly check-ins go pretty far off the rails. One dev I remember would go off by himself for weeks designing clever code and over-engineering things that weren’t needed. I thought to myself that someone should be checking in with him, and then months later I got stuck doing overtime before a delivery deadline with dozens of other devs on a weekend chasing an intermittent release-only runtime crash that turns out he caused by trying to get tricky with copy constructors. A quick 1:1 could have prevented this bug that ended up costing tens or hundreds of thousands before it ever happened.

BTW, the best managers I’ve ever had were technical contributors, and they tended to be more relaxed about check-ins than the non-technical managers, in part because they had a better sense of where things sat. Personally I also feel like a better manager when I’m contributing technically to a project, and devs seem to respect that more.

The best manager I had in my career was a guy with zero software dev experience. Technical skills and leadership are simply different fields. Converting a best engineer into a mediocre manager doesn't sound like a solution for anything.

As a data point, I work at a US company that ended up in this place and the same thing is happening.

In my BU there were directors with 2 direct reports. Even at the next level up, the number of non-IC directs is only high single digits. There are many managers who were already engaging technically with the product (not PRs but playing an active role in planning work) and they have no idea what directors are actually doing...aside from attending meetings with other directors.

Almost all decision-making capacity has been moved outside of teams which has resulted in almost no actual work (because everything needs to be cleared by someone with no engagement with product) and people leaving (because promo decisions are made by people who have no idea what anyone is contributing, the worst ICs are the only ones they can retain ofc).

It is a terrible environment to work in.

I don't necessarily think the manager should be best IC but definitely someone who is genuinely talented with sufficient scope and responsibility to make good decisions/add value for ICs. There are way too many passengers today.

Also, this is true of higher-level ICs. At my work, they have no real engagement with product so have influence through ambiguous statements about the general direction that get passed around like the word of God. None of these decisions, so far, have been helpful or relevant.

> Before that the manager was essentially the best engineer in the team

I'm not sure that's ever been true.

>> Producing nothing, but for sure making themselves look self-important.

A good manager is worth their worth in gold even if they produce zero technical output. I've had managers that were absolutely instrumental in my career as a programmer, and they did close to zero IC work.

>>Before that the manager was essentially the best engineer in the tea

Yes, and it was absolutely awful. Keep the best engineer in the team as the best engineer on the team. Call them experts, distinguished, senior++, whatever, don't make them managers.

>>Let's go back to what it used to be

God, please don't.

>>We don't need weekly 1:1s to check on feelings.

Speak for yourself please. I find weekly 1:1 extremely important for the entire team, especially in fully remote roles.

You people (as in this HN community) have your conception of middle management taken from memes, comics and to some extent a lack of experience. Managing even 5-10 people means juggling projects, personnel management, being held accountable for all actions of your people, having to be sandwiched between the pie-in-the-sky class and the myopic individual, translator in between. It means jumping on outage calls, doing architecture reviews, and getting slammed with meetings.

Please tell me where these 'managers make a lot of money and do nothing but approve timesheets' companies are, I'd kill to work for one!

I have worked in big tech, venture funded scale up - series D etc and yeah early stage pre-seed.

the places - where pure managers just existed i.e manager, senior engineering manager, director, vp etc - just added unnecessary overhead.

places that flourished had a manager who was also an IC - who reported directly to the CTO

which means I was 1 layer away from the CTO

Crazy jeremiad here. This never existed as a norm across the industry outside pockets like Bell Labs. Office Space was not a film about Google's pioneering new management philosophy.

> We don't need weekly 1:1s to check on feelings

Hard agree. One-on-ones are one of the silliest fads in our industry lately. Why would you wait until a weekly scheduled meeting to bring something up? Your manager's job is to be available to you when you need something, not just once a week. And if they want to know how you're feeling.. they should ask, putting it on an agenda feels very disingenuous.

Me and my direct manager (a C-level) tried weekly 1:1s for a full year and ended up giving up on it because it was clearly unproductive cargo-culting.

I unironically want that to be me. Check in, make sure the team is 'well fed,' increase my team's survivability by talking with other teams and advocating for mine. Then I go home at the end of the day, take the kids to school, whatever... I don't really want to ever touch a line of code again either physically or by proxy (Claude code), yet I respect the hell out of engineers and want to fall on swords for them. Where does that leave me?

hmm, maybe, All Managers Are Bastards