> Any halfway-competent engineering manager knows she should spend more of her time with her top people, because anything she can do to improve their performance is that much more impactful for the business.
I guess the point is that to improve their performance the best managers can do is "get out of their way", not "spend more of her time" with them.
Yeah, that's my point though -- that's a common belief, and it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
Consider some common scenarios:
If you have a tech lead who's cooking up some new architecture, some new idea, whatever -- it's valuable to both of you to spend time together on it. The manager can make connections to work going on with other teams/customers, can help pressure-test the business reasoning for particular design choices, and can help line up the right people to work on it alongside the TL. Meanwhile, the TL benefits by having their design strengthened up front and getting connections to the right people, without having to spend tons of time meandering around the business.
By contrast, a junior engineer isn't going to benefit from a doubling or tripling of the manager's time. Their work is straightforward. The manager's only job is to ensure they have good tickets, make sure they have a nearby mentor in a mid-level/senior engineer, and then get out of the way.
Tying back to the article, the top/senior people are exactly the ones who are going to be doing new and creative things, so they -- and therefore the business -- benefit the most from the manager's time.
I'm not sure you understand what it means to be a senior engineer.
A senior engineer can generally do every single role involved in the process, from PM all the way down to developer. They often don't because they don't have the time to fill 3 or 4 roles, but they _can_.
One of the roles they can fill is manager and reaching out to others in order to coordinate and facilitate work amongst others.
A senior is _not_ a junior who can program faster or better. A senior is someone who has a much broader set of skills than a junior.
Exactly getting top people improved would take a lot and mostly would get in the way.
Getting lower performers to higher level should take less effort to achieve nice results.
Also low performers need to be controlled because if they don’t show signs of improvement it requires quick decision to let them go. You don’t let go your top performers unless they are really shitty people or done something really bad.
I guess the point is that to improve their performance the best managers can do is "get out of their way", not "spend more of her time" with them.