
Why Good Developers are Promoted into Unhappiness - rwalling
http://www.softwarebyrob.com/archive/2007/07/06/Why_Good_Developers_Promoted_into_Unhappiness.aspx
======
menloparkbum
This is a much repeated notion, but I've never worked anywhere good developers
are promoted into management. Tons of bad developers end up in management,
though...

~~~
staunch
Am I right in guessing you've worked for smallish organizations? I've seen
some amazing programmers promoted, mostly as a mechanism to pay them more.
I've even seen one forced to quit after not accepting repeated promotion
attempts.

IMHO the single most important advice for any hacker who wants to be happy is
to avoid large organizations, even Google. Large organizations are the plague,
a small company is good medicine, and your own startup is the cure.

------
geebee
This is a good article. I've been through something very similar myself. I
spent about 5 years as a manager, and I don't really want to do "spreadsheet"
management again. I want to own my project, and I don't mind being the lead
with a small team, but I never want to be the "status updater" again.

This reminds me of a phrase that irritates the $^%^ out of me - "Better a good
programmer than a bad manager." Of course, it's true - better a good anything
than a bady anything, right? But here are the two phrases that nobody seems to
say...

"Better a good manager than a bad programmer".

and finally...

"Better a good manager than a good programmer?" or is it "better a good
programmer than a good manager?"

In many organizations, I'm convinced that the second is true. Bad managers do
have the ability to ruin a team, and so you need to make sure that you have a
decent level of talent there. But for a lot of companies, especially small
ones working on innovative things (read: startups), the top techincal talent
is vastly more important.

In other words, if you have someone who could be a great technical contributor
_and_ a great technical manager, you're better off with the technical
contributions.

------
donna
Rob's piece is an excellent reflection on keeping to ones integrity, and
finding a balance in the role that best fits one's passion. I've been around
managers who are proud of their job as a over-the-shoulder screaming maniac,
and managers that sleep during meetings. Until designs and projects are
clearly defined, and individuals feel capable to independently fulfill the
task, bad managers, pigeonholed managers, appear to be the corporate solution.

------
myoung8
Perhaps this is a case of "the grass is always greener on the other side."

