Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Dave Cutler is my personal aspirational model. When I am 70, I want to still be writing production code, rather than languishing in middle management.

Engineers who choose to "trade up" to management will always baffle me.




You have remember 90% of programmers work on fairly boring business applications.

They don't get work on cutting edge stuff like cutler.


Cutler: "I will fix the bugs, I will fix other people's bugs, I will fix build breaks."


It's a personal decision. No need to hate on it.

There was a recent entry here in HN where a developer discussed his/her regret at not having moved to the managerial path. I am trying to find it but it's taking me some time.

It's a tough decision.


I'd be interested in seeing this post as well. As someone whose intellectual firepower is probably 50/50 on convergent/divergent thinking styles, it's pretty difficult for me to find a fit. Project Manager seems like the closest role I can find that can satisfy my skills and tastes.



It's a question of salary. If you are not an engineering superstar you will often hit a hard limit on your salary if you are an engineer. You can make more as a manager.


Would you prefer to have a manager who wasn't an engineer previously?


A manager has to have the right skills to manage a project and lead people. This is usually not something you find in engineers, so like teachers, it's not the expert knowledge (e.g. tech) but soft skills that count most for a manager. Therefore, a great manager doesn't have to know to code, at all. I haven't seen a single dev lead who got promoted from developer to manager who actually managed to manage the team/project reasonably.


I would like to be offered the choice. That is, most managers come from "the business" or something, and have never been an engineer, and don't want to have been an engineer. Given a choice, I'd pick the manager that was an engineer, but those folks are pretty rare.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: