undefined | Better HN

0 pointssiren20264d ago0 comments

> But I do need 1:1s to check on progress, uncover blockers that people haven’t surfaced on their own.

That's why historically having managers being strong IC contributors remove that need because they already KNOW the progress and issues on the field.

Modern BigTech created that artificial layer of managers that need to know about all the blockers and progress, just to report it to another layer of managers. That layer is so big that they need 8 hours of meetings to sync with each other. This is purely an organizational issue.

I'm saying a lot of the managerial work is busywork that got pushed as a need by BigTech need to empire building.

0 comments

dahart3d ago

I’m not sure this framing is accurate. Companies have always had management. All large organizations have layered management; the Catholic Church has had layered management for two thousand years; your government has layered management; all militaries have layered management; Bell Telephone and Standard Oil had layered management for a hundred years before computers in business were a thing. This is purely a function of large groups, because communication is necessary to function, and giving FAANG companies credit for it overstates their influence.

Calling it a feature of empire building might be somewhat accurate in the sense that yes all companies and most groups aim to make money, or otherwise grow and succeed. Still, that seems like a pessimistic way to put it. Even small companies and church groups and libraries and PTA associations will have presidents & treasurers. Middle managers appear as soon as group size hits a certain limit.

siren2026OP2d ago

I think what we are arguing is that yes management layers always existed.

But the state right now is that:

- those management layers are now more disconnected than ever from the actual work. Most managers are career managers that have given up on any actual technical work. Even if they used to be technical ICs, most bigtech actively discourage managers to do anything remotely technical. I still cannot understand this.

- There are way more managers per IC than there ever was (Last big tech I was in, my org had ~5 ICs per manager. I couldn't believe it and have no idea what those people actually did the whole day besides meeting each other!). This is directly because Directors decide to hire Managers and have a direct incentive to grow the amount of layers and amount of people in their pyramid. Even if they don't mean to, directors and VPs are managers as well and as such they have a direct belief and incentive that more management is better.

dahart2d ago

No, I think this still this isn’t an accurate framing of history. Managers have always had a completely different job than the people they manage. If anything, having a lot of managers that are in the trenches, writing code for example, is the newer trend. Since the Industrial Revolution, managers typically oversaw work but did not do the labor. You could ask some managers what they do all day, but once you get some management experience, you will start to understand what managers do all day and how there’s enough to do that getting technical work done is relatively difficult, and might compromise their ability to manage well.

Here are some pointers to the evolution of management over time that you might find interesting or enlightening:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Fayol#Functions_of_manag...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker

The typical ratio of managers to laborers has definitely increased over time. 1:5 is higher than average, but 1:10 is very common for knowledge work. There are many reasons why this is, team building incentives are only one of many. But one question you should ask yourself is why you even care. Companies are free to function any way they want to, and they pay you to contribute to their choice of structure. Given that all modern large companies function this way, and also make money, maybe it’s worth starting from the assumption that it evolved this way for a reason? See Chesterton’s Fence.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse