Good way to bash that down is to ask 'would you want their role?' It makes them stop and think what does that person really do and they usually do not want to do it at all.

I think that often engineers hold the view that the role in question doesn’t need to exist. And some roles are just welfare for MBAs.

I guess they have read "Bullshit Jobs".

I've never personally felt that race-to-the-bottom capitalism would generally allow for such parasitic drains on productivity, but then again, if you're hiring on past contributions only, how would you as a non-expert in sales/marketing/etc know what makes efficiency?

I don't think your view is anywhere near as common as you think it is, but maybe in your immediate peer group there's some self-selecting cause for believing so.

I didn’t say it was my view, just what I’ve seen in expressed by others.

This was the question I asked myself that totally changed how I thought about sales and marketing people.

I cannot do sales, I do not want to do sales, but if I want a job someone needs to do sales. To me sales looks like an awful job, but some people really get a kick out of it and I'm glad they do because otherwise I would earn a lot less than I do.

We love to think that "if we build it they will come" but the reality is very different, and most of us work for companies that would struggle to grow without some form of sales or marketing operation, no matter how good the product might be.

> To me sales looks like an awful job

You meet new people. They tell you about their problems. You explain to them how your product can alleviate them. You work on finding a common position regarding what you could bring at which price. When it works, you get a big cheque. It’s pretty fun really.

I think the outbound cold calling side of it was the bit that never appealed.

Once that connection has been made I can definitely see the attraction.

That is a terrible argument. Would you want to be the office elevator boy? I like to be useful so of a role would be useful I would want to do it even less.

As for what I think about managers: unsure, I have been a manager, worked under many managers (most of them bad) but I am still not sure if mangers should exist or be replaced with another role.

I don't want the janitor's role either, but that person isn't in charge of me. Engineering managers are glorified secretaries. We should replace them with actual secretaries that are subordinate to engineers.

My best experiences with managers were ones that did that. Just let me work and help me if I need it. I'll reach out if I do.

That's not a manager, that's a secretary, which is my point. Engineering groups don't need managers, they need lead engineers and clerical staff, similar to a group of lawyers or doctors.

Managers jobs are typically kind of like a secretary but more. But more of a jack of all trades. Making sure the budget is correct for this year so we can hire the right amount of people (accountant). Jim on the third row needs a lot more hand holding than usual because his wife is in chemo (HR). Going to the upper management to make sure that 3 of your co-workers get the recognition they deserve (cheerleader). Sitting in that 3 hour meeting working out who is going to pay for that feature the sales guys must have (negotiator). Plus a dozen other things. If that position did not exist you know who would be doing that? You and all of your coworkers would. Are a lot of people bad at that? Yep. But some are good too.

The point of my question is to make people stop and think about the chesterton's fence of why is that position there. For example your janitor example. Extremely well defined position. Most people do not want it (including yourself).

You think lawyers and doctors don't have people to manage them?

The reason most engineers don't have secretaries is because we usually prefer doing the same thing with automation and scripts.

I'm curious what difference you see between a "manager" and a "lead engineer".

A manager often isn't even an engineer, and a lead engineer often doesn't have a manager role.

Edit: To clarify lead engineer, they have authority over technical decisions, not people management.

One of the best things I ever did was run a business on my own very early on.

I was terrible at it. Forced to actually contact customers I had no clue what to do. I had no idea how to price things. I communicated terribly and drove away initial customers.

I learned a healthy respect of other positions in a company, because when I tried them I had to accept they were actually hard.