Should Eng Leaders at least be from Science
At Netflix (and other Eng companies), more and more leaders are being hired with no engineering or science background and worked at tier-3 (or below) places. They are being given the responsibility to make engineering decisions. That doesn't sound like the right step for the long-term benefit of the industry and business.
If it is all about communication and writing skills - folks with engineering and science backgrounds are at a disadvantage as folks with Art, English, Political Science major are obviously going to be better in those skills. Many people in science are also introverts and are at a huge disadvantage.
My question is the following:
If a science background is not even required and we value people's skill over an analytical/scientific mindset, why don't we hire managers from Starbucks (or similar) places at a meager cost? Netflix pays close a mil to these managers who have no science/eng background, went to unknown schools and worked at no-tier companies.
The VP of product at Netflix has political science background. May be that is why he was able to survive so long with right political knowledge.
What does the community think?
TC: ~500k
comments
If you don’t respect someone based on your perception of their background, and not on their actual merits or performance, then who’s the real idiot?
I make it very clear with my team as well as in interviews that you don't want me anywhere near your code - yet in the regular anonymous employee surveys, I rank among the highest in the company with almost 100% scores for every manager category.
The problem I have seen is that there are incredibly talented SWE's who are shit managers. For me, I'm a shit programmer who invests in my team to make them incredibly talented. Success is in the results of our project work and I'll brag for a minute and say we do some amazing shit. Always pushing the bleeding edge which has led to speaking sessions at conferences, cross-industry contributions to our open source projects, and overall a near perfect retention for my team. Just don't expect to find me behind the podium - I'll be there in the front row cheering you on and making sure you get all the credit.
If someone has work experience that shows that they can do the role or can otherwise make a case that they can do the work that's a much stronger signal.
If you want to be a coder and not develop communication skills, that's fine, but your career growth will definitely stall out. Soft skills become more and more important as your career progresses.
I have seen some of the most tech savvy leaders crash and burn because they were promoted up to their level of leadership and bureaucratic incompetency (Peter principle), and I have seen non tech leaders damn near rescue an org from collapse.
On no planet should tech skills (that won’t be used anyway) be a prerequisite for a leadership role, unless it’s a startup and they’re also writing code. GTFOH with this naive (or god complex/ego?) bs.