David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)

And that's more important.

It's more important that you work under and with someone who's better at your job than you are if you wish to progress in your career.

And every single programmer I've ever worked with was far more interested in progressing in their career on that metric, getting better at their craft, than they were in picking up pointers that a middle manager could teach them.

That's not saying that there isn't value in it.

It's not saying there isn't value in being a better person or a better communicator.

Of course, there is all those things.

But if I have to choose one or the other, I value competence higher.

Like that's, again...

I caveat this a million times because I know what people sometimes hear.

They hear the genius asshole is just fine and that's great and you should excuse all sorts of malicious behavior if someone's just really good at what they do.

I'm not saying that at all.

What I am saying is that the history of competence is a history of learning from people who are better than you.

And that relationship should take precedence over all else.

And that relationship gets put aside a bit when engineering managers are introduced.

Now, the funny thing is, this conversation ties back to the earlier things we were talking about.

Most engineering managers are actually former programmers.

They at least know programming to some extent.

But what I've seen time and again is that they lose their touch, their feel with it very, very quickly and turn into pointy-haired bosses very, very quickly who are really good at checking for updates, just seeing where we are on Project A here, if you need anything or we're ready to deliver to you.

Yes, and also, no, just shut up.

Leave me the hell alone.