[engineers_unite]

Micromanagement is what managers do who don't trust their teams or feel threatened by their engineers. If you are a former engineer in management, remember what it feels like to be micromanaged. You are not a manager because you were/are still a great engineer. If you are- your org is broken and the wrong people are in management.

[icedchai]

It depends. My best managers have been engineers. You generally don't need a full time engineering manager for a small 4 person team. If you do, your org is probably dysfunctional.

I will say though, if you're going to do both, do a good job, meaning one you'd expect of your reports. Don't be a manager that hands off his half-working project "to take it over the line." Finish your work.

[otteromkram]

> My best managers have been engineers.

Right. The other comment said that people don't move into management because they are a great engineer. That doesn't mean managers haven't been engineers.

[lolinder]

You just repeated the common understanding of micromanagement, which both OP and TFA are responding to. Just repeating back the same ideas which your interlocutor thought that they already addressed doesn't make for very effective discourse.

Here's what OP said:

> This isn't exactly "micromanagement" (and the article says as much) but great eng leaders not only understand things at a lower level of detail, but they're able to communicate with their team in a way that doesn't feel like micromanagement at all.

Do you disagree with this? If so, why?

[engineers_unite]

The presumption here is that engineering leadership is the best source of intelligence and ideas. That now you are in a leadership role, you have a megaphone, so use it. This is a terrible, terrible practice.

If you truly do have the best knowledge, build support for your ideas through dialogue. Make engineers and other leaders feel like they own the idea.

Good managers build consensus. Good ideas build their own momentum. Bad managers use the megaphone, and push their ideas by avoiding dialogue. Even if their ideas are implemented through micromanagement/force of will, they do not stick, because no one else feels ownership.

Larson seems to think that engineering excellence from ICs is synonymous with doing what your manager tells you without question.

[hibikir]

My dark perspective here is that what Will is saying is that, as the number of people under you grows, the ability of some people to completely bungle everything up without consequences goes up. And this isn't really about really bad engineers, but really bad first and second level managers, as upper levels are often quite bad at identifying performance at those roles.

So what I think will is saying is not really to not trust your engineers, but to mistrust your managers.