Can tech companies operate without managers?
Share your thoughts. I kind want to join a firm where individual contributors make all the decisions and be the true owners.
How does conflict resolution work in that kind of environment? How are directional disputes resolved? Who makes decisions on hiring and firing? Who decides how to allocate budget? (Not saying these are insurmountable, just questions that need to be answered for such an environment to be effective.)
This mindset never works. Engineers are not “business minded” and don’t see anything wrong with simply working on cool projects that might not align with the benefit of the business. Aka pushed deadlines, sloppy North Star, and cash burning.
No
I think we could definitely do better work without middle management. Middle managers simply do the bidding of upper and C-suite management anyway, so why not just cut out the middleman? Small cross-functional committees consisting of eng, UI/UX Content and design, and research could really provide strong innovative solutions and help companies be more competitive. Instead of the current trend of tech companies operating as efficiently and creatively as the DMV. Everything is a huge bureaucratic nightmare and tech innovation is a thing of the past. Big companies prefer to simply buy up the competition that’s created something new rather than invest in a company infrastructure that fosters creativity.
Yes. Heard of Valve? No managers.
Valve cut out middle layers but Gabe is very much in control, not the ICs.
Still, no middle layers is essentially no managers
Lol, no! Be ready to have ICs with managerial attitude that will sink the boat. Engineers want to work on interesting stuff disregarding the business goals.
No
It’s like asking “can countries run without government officials”. The answer is yes and no at the same time, and it’s far too long and unnecessary to be given in this comment. But the more important message is not whether it’s possible but whether it’s probable (vs current reality) and the answer is a firm no. No, it’s not probable because all of ‘em managers won’t just disappear because a few employees are disgruntled.
True owners of what?
Managers should help unblocking engineers so engineers can own the project. Not the other way around.
Not really, they just get in the way