Stop sacking managers
Can we please stop sacking engineering managers and replacing them with software engineers?
❌ The problem isn’t that managers aren’t useful.
🤦♀️ The problem is that most managers are bad at their jobs.
Here’s how it happens: talented engineers get promoted into management roles because of their coding skills. Suddenly, they’re expected to manage teams without proper training or support (seriously, 82% of managers in the UK receive no training according to a recent study).
These new ‘managers’ fall back on what they know - coding - because their bosses most likely never learned how to be effective managers either. So, no new expectations are set, and they are never supported to learn the new skillset required to be an excellent manager.
This creates two major misconceptions:
- Management seems unimportant because these engineers do 10% of the job - focussing on coding with some holiday approval/admin tasks.
- Managers seem ineffective because they struggle to balance their coding responsibilities with managing, and end up failing at both.
Even if you do have skilled managers, they’re often undervalued. Their work goes unnoticed because as aforementioned the leaders above them can’t appreciate what good management looks like - or simply don’t have the time to.
As a result, more companies are reverting to the flawed idea of software engineers managing teams directly.
🚨 Using this model at scale is a disaster waiting to happen.
Here’s why:
❌ Engineers want to code. Let them do what they’re best at.
❌ No training = poor management. They’ll likely struggle with delivery, stakeholder, and people management. Projects will be delayed, cancelled or just an absolute mess.
❌ Engineering management is a complex, full-time role. You can’t do it justice while still coding - something’s got to give. It’s two separate jobs.
❌ It’s more than just ‘pastoral care.’ When engineers realise the emotional toll and resilience required, they’ll quit - leaving you without top talent and no one to hire in the replacement.
Mark my words: In the near future, companies will scramble to hire great engineering managers again. By then, teams will be quitting, morale will be in the gutter, and everyone will finally realise the immense value a great engineering manager brings.
✅ Get ahead of the competition. Invest in creating or hiring great managers now instead of repeating the same mistakes.
