What qualifications does a "scrum master" have that a software engineer does not have when it comes to creating a self-managing team? The "scrum" pamphlet can be read on a lunch break and I don't think the certs even have exams.

In my experience, there's a couple: 1. The scrum master actually has a personality that facilitates talking to people both inside and outside the team, getting people to participate in meetings, etc. The software engineers do not. 2. The scrum master has time to spend on dealing with external stakeholders, coordinating between teams, etc. The team members have better things to do with their time, like write software.

So it's contempt for engineers again. They need a layman to communicate for them. I don't think so, engineers communicate just fine at FAANG. I don't see why they need an agile helper in non-tech enterprise. Lawyers don't need agile, and doctors don't. There is no reason why engineers would.

The team members are too busy with agile meetings to write software. That's a more common problem.

Maybe giving the tech lead a technical secretary is a better idea if you have a lot of administration to be done.

Obviously you have some kind of axe to grind and haven't worked in a place that uses the scrum process decently. We never spent much time in agile meetings.

No, that is not obvious, more than you making money from corporate agile, which few software engineers seem to actually like. Too many meetings is one of the most common criticisms.