Should Top Developers Code or Manage?
By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
November 1, 2002 —
(Page 1 of 3)
The old insult that most people are familiar with is, "Those who can't do, teach." In programming circles, it's "Those who can't code, manage."
Of course, only people who can't teach or manage think it's an insult, but there you go. Many programmers-I'd say most-don't understand that management involves its own skill sets just as important, if not more so, than knowing how to manage memory.
Frankly, most developers don't see it. In a way programmers are lucky. Most of them, even if they're working on a huge team, can point at a project and say with pride (on good days), "I wrote that." Or, "Today, I wrote 50 lines of bulletproof code." It's great to get up from the desk and see concrete results.
Many developers assume that's how all jobs are. If you can't produce something visible at the end of the day, then you aren't really working.
If some of them weren't so obnoxious about it, it would be enough to make you laugh. You've heard them: Joe's a joke with his stupid suit and tie, he sets deadlines according to whatever the marketing idiots tell him that day, and he decides what tools we should use based on what ads have the cutest blonde in them.
What, of course, they don't see is that to be taken seriously by management you have to wear a suit and tie. And they also don't see the fights you have with management, the CIO, the CTO and the marketing staff to get realistic deadlines and tools that they can use productively. For you, a single well-written memo can often go a lot further toward getting a project done than any number of late-night hours with just you, your workstation and a case of Jolt.
Should you as a technology manager know the technology? I think so. But, based on my experience, most programmers don't think their noncoding team leaders could code their way out of a paper bag.
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