Here is why I think every manager should learn how to code
With coding knowledge, managers will be able to see their product in a different way
It’s well known that software engineers are one of the best-paid professions nowadays, not the highest, but you can have a nice salary by coding every day. Then many people think that working as a software engineer is “cool”, you can spend time restings, playing games and you are not working as much as any other person who is paid less. For sure it is to work as a software engineer, but what is never talked about is that we, developers, don’t work for computers, but to humans. And a few of these humans are our bosses.
For sure we have great leaders who are emphatic, but sometimes the boss of our boss may not be that emphatic. Looking mostly only in results and deadlines. Especially when it comes to systems that may be widely consumed. Asking for due dates when we try to work with agile, which I think that sprint and due dates are two things that must be aligned between stakeholders and product owners.
Management is quite pragmatic in terms of what needs to be delivered and when it should be delivered, without concerning the real efforts to implement or fix something in their own system. Then we have a middle position that helps in the communication between developers and managers, Tech leaders.
Tech leaders are responsible mainly to manage expectations between sides, understanding the managers' needs, and technical efforts to develop what is necessary to be developed.
Usually, a tech leader needs to explain how hard it is to change something in legacy code, despite the fact that it is the company’s legacy, it’s still old code that needs to be touched. Also, someone in that position often faces issues like.
I say: So, we have to implement this new application in places X, Y and Z, but also we need to concern about performance because it will be highly used every day
The Manager Says: Ok, how long it will take?
I kindly reply: 3 months
The Manager: Ok, then what is the best-case scenario?
That’s how it is, I’m always explaining already the fixed-case scenario, considering how long it will take and what is the team knowledge to do that and so on.
