>They should be coding because they'll be able to relate to their supports in a deeper and more fulfilling way.
That's a valid point although I've seen it go badly when a mostly out of touch manager (time is finite, even the most technical manager will be out of touch) thinks they're still at the top of their technical game. They then force out of date engineering decisions on the team.
>They'll be able to mentor and provide guidance on technology best practices and patterns.
That should be done by the senior engineers and tech leads with support from the manager. These are the people who spend 100% of their time thinking technology while even a technical manager will do it 25% of the time. The manager should be the one to structure these conversations, formalize mentorship processes and so on.
> That's a valid point although I've seen it go badly when a mostly out of touch manager (time is finite, even the most technical manager will be out of touch) thinks they're still at the top of their technical game. They then force out of date engineering decisions on the team.
Yes, or even worse they don't respect it when their team tells them something is hard to build and will take more time. You get a very "back in my day I'd put this together in a weekend what's the big deal" attitude from people like this.
That's a valid point although I've seen it go badly when a mostly out of touch manager (time is finite, even the most technical manager will be out of touch) thinks they're still at the top of their technical game. They then force out of date engineering decisions on the team.
>They'll be able to mentor and provide guidance on technology best practices and patterns.
That should be done by the senior engineers and tech leads with support from the manager. These are the people who spend 100% of their time thinking technology while even a technical manager will do it 25% of the time. The manager should be the one to structure these conversations, formalize mentorship processes and so on.