Meta to Ask Many Managers to Become Individual Contributors or Leave

Re:Meta to Ask Many Managers to Become Individual Contributo... by pkd on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @03:03PM (#34698607)

Managers are an organisational necessity past a certain scale. If you have not felt the need for them I can only guess you've not been in a company big enough.

Think of it as trying to run a big country with direct democracy. Can it be done? Maybe. But there are good reasons why democracies become indirect after a certain scale.

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Re:Meta to Ask Many Managers to Become Individual Contributo... by revskill on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @03:17PM (#34698822)

Not quite. If i'm a CEO, my manager is required to know coding first. It's nonsensical and ineffecient to hire a non-coder to manage real coders ?

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Re:Meta to Ask Many Managers to Become Individual Contributo... by pkd on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @05:26PM (#34700708)

I don't think I was claiming that. Managers should definitely be able to code. That does not mean that we don't need managers.

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Re:Meta to Ask Many Managers to Become Individual Contributo... by ReflectedImage on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @04:49PM (#34700279)

"Managers are an organisational necessity past a certain scale." That sounds like a dubious claim, I'm sure there are exotic ways to run an organisation that doesn't need managers.

For example, Pirate ships ran with a Battle Commander, Accountant and Crew.

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Re:Meta to Ask Many Managers to Become Individual Contributo... by pkd on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @05:32PM (#34700783)

Pirate ships frequently had crews of about 50, and the biggest ones never exceed a couple of hundred. Do you have real world examples of large organisations (in the thousands of employees) being managed in a flat hierarchy? Because I don't.

Please note I'm not saying you can't be overprovisioned in managers. I'm replying to the parent comment that sees no need for managers.

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