nosewheelie

Via Gruber comes Wide vs. Deep:

I’ve got this theory about what it’s like to be a manager and what it’s like to be a developer and which role suits a particular individual best, and I think it explains pretty well why I deeply, profoundly hate the former and dearly, truly love the latter.

A few years ago, the company I work for decided that I was such a good programmer that I had to stop doing it immediately. I was now to tell other programmers what to do, using all the social delicacy and interpersonal self-confidence I’d built up over two decades sitting in a dark room and staring at a monitor. I was being promoted into management.

I’ve often wondered why this happens to people, and written about it before. Far too many people think development is a dead end game, and that you must “move up”. I personally know only a handful of people who have more experience than me and are still developers. This is a real shame for our industry, the customers and those who consume our work loose, as do those who could learn from them.

I’m not saying that good developers can’t be good managers (I’ve known some good ones myself), just that it takes a lot of effort to be do both well (hopefully you’re not doing both at the same time). The opposite is also not ideal, where we end up with bad developers becoming bad managers.