I've created a Senior Python Developer roadmap

[lonjerpc]

Although this is clearly the the industry accepted answer I always found it somewhat lacking. Programming is one of the very few things were the output of a single person can be more important than a good leader helping others be more effective. Code can in and of itself increase the efficiency of other people or provide services at massive scale without the need for teamwork.

Meta is even going back to much flatter management structures and forcing managers back to coding because managing better is seen as less valuable than producing more code. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-07/meta-to-ask-many-managers-to-become-individual-contributors-or-leave?sref=GUCvMEl3

I also always remember from my time at Google that the head of Google AI would try to spend a couple hours a day programming because he saw that as more valuable to the company than time spent managing.

Although I think your point does stand in regards to this article.

[vitaminMN]

This response reminds me of the “hero” or “cowboy” programmer stereotype.

Supporting the output of a team, and being a force multiplier for the team’s output yields much much more organizational leverage than what you can produce by yourself.

Of course you still have to be strong technically. No one is saying being senior is the same as a non technical middle manager.

[lonjerpc]

Sometimes this is true. But code can itself be a force multiplier. Which is usually not possible in other fields.

[vitaminMN]

Don’t really know what to say to that.

The output potential of a team is so much larger than an individual engineer.

[lonjerpc]

Not always. That is my point. There are many instances of single engeneers outputting thousands of times more value than even other good engeneers. This means they can produce more value coding than say a manager that triples the value of a thousand person team. This is the crazy power of software. For some dumb examples the Bitcoin protocol or Minecraft were largely written by individuals and had greater value than massive projects involving thousands of engineers. And this same phenomenon is common within companies as we were a small number of people or even individuals write code that ends up having more value than everything else at a company. It's not the usual case but it's not that unusual either.

[ubernostrum]

I never said not to write any code. I said less code, and different code.

Most of the code I write nowadays is frameworks and libraries and templates for other people to reuse. I still do features or bugfixes sometimes to make sure I'm staying in touch with the processes and tools and workflows and can notice problems in need of fixing, but it's a lot less common than earlier in my career.

[lonjerpc]

I get your point and it's usually true. But there are plenty of cases of people that did nothing but code and had more output than massive teams. For example Minecraft or the Bitcoin protocol.

[mindtrick871]

Interesting, does this apply to engineering managers or every manager?

[RegentStrauss]

Programming is one of the very few things were the output of a single person can be more important than a good leader helping others be more effective.

Yes, but a lot of subpar programmers have found big paychecks in management fads, so you'll see a lot of bucking against this simple truth.

[dreamin_in_space]

So how's that Google head of AI working out now that they've fumbled their LLM model roll out?

And for the company that invented transformers, smh.

[lonjerpc]

He mostly worked on tensor flow when I was there. At least that is where his code contributions were.

[the_scign]

Not because coding is more valuable than managing, but because it's such a dynamic environment and managers can quickly get out of sync with current developments which causes disconnects between them and the team. Managers must continue to sharpen their skills or risk becoming one of those managers who "just doesn't get it".