Ask the Programmer
Ask The Programmer Episode 252 - Can a Technical Manager be a Programmer?
08 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
From the world of AV programming and control with James King, I'm Steve Greenblatt, and this is Ask the Programmer. James, how are you today? I'm glad we're having another conversation similar to last week, and I look forward to chatting with you.
Oh, again, I love when we can connect and chat, and I'm doing well.
How about you, Steve? I'm doing well as well, and Glad that we're continuing our trend. We're having a one-on-one conversation this week, but we do like to have guests. So if you are interested in being on the show, please let us know. And we'd like to have you if you have a topic that you'd like to talk about or if you want to comment on what we're talking about.
You're welcome to in either way. So please reach out to us. So if you were with us last week, we talked about how a manager should keep up their technical skills and the importance of that and what goes into that and how it can be a challenge to do so. So today we're kind of going to flip the script a little bit.
We're going to talk about should a manager go as far as also being a programmer, you know, and vice versa, you know, does a programmer make a good manager of programmers? You know, so it's kind of two different dialogues, but we're going to mash them up and see where we go with it. So James, we both, again, we've both been in these roles before and we're both,
And these are both relevant conversations for us where we are and what we do day to day. So tell me a little bit about your thoughts.
My thought on if a programmer should become a manager and my gut reaction is no. And that's mainly because, you know, I've said this before. I always say this is tech is easy. People are hard. And I really have come to embrace that and understand that I've been, you know, processing that a lot lately. I look at us programmers and this is not like a knock on us to program. We are very literal.
We have to be in program. We say that you press this button, it does this. Not like, you know, feelings aren't involved. There's not a lot of, This is what happens. We are very literal. We are very to the point. People are not like that. A manager, you're not like that.
And I think it's been really hard, at least for me, I don't know about you, Steve, as someone who's been programming and everything's very literal, you do this, this happens. Or you say this, this happens.
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Chapter 2: Should a technical manager also be a programmer?
Or like, bright icing would be better here. It's just, I'm going to turn green. It doesn't know if it has no other say to it. So yeah, I just think that's probably the hardest thing, especially as programmers going from being very literal to dealing with vague information.
Yeah, for me, it comes back to personality types. And that's something that I'm big on is that the typical personality type of a programmer is a very, I use the DISC method is a high C, which is somebody who is, like you said, is analytical, is very detail-oriented, is very specific. They are somebody who is going to be in the weeds a lot.
They're going to be the ones that are reading all the documentation and and doing things following the rules, let's say. And a lot of these are different qualities, and not every programmer possesses them all to the same degree. But a lot of times, that's what makes up a good programmer. managers have to live in the gray a little bit more, as you said. Things aren't as black and white.
You have to be able to make adjustments and you have to adapt to situations. Now, I'm going to probably call myself out is that I may not fit the prototypical manager or even a business owner because I come from more of the background of the C-type personality. But I've gotten to learn and build the muscles that I need and continue to learn.
But there are some things that are inherent in good leaders and good managers that are very common to them. You have to be very goal-oriented and driven, and you have to, as you mentioned, be able to work with people and personalities. You're not just working with a machine. But there's a certain amount of sensitivity that comes into that role, and I think some programmers could strive, could
really succeed in, in that place because they have that, they possess the, the patience and the ability to, you know, to, to deal with, um, situations, but it's, um, there are, there are different roles and different responsibilities. And just because you're very good at something doesn't mean that then you should manage people, uh, that are doing that role?
Yeah, I'm not. It's always great to take your best programmer and make him a manager of programming, programmers and stuff like that. And the one thing I will say, just like programming, just like any technical thing, being a leader, being a manager, you can learn a big podcast I listen to is coaching for leaders.
And they're saying there is coaches aren't born or leaders aren't born, they're made. And yes, I have gone through some rough patches as a manager and, you know, leader. And, you know, I have grown and learned it's a different muscle. It's a different mindset. So I do feel people can learn it. But you have to have that personality, you can say, that drive to do it.
And there are some people who don't want to. They don't want to deal with people. They want to deal with ones and zeros. They want to be very literal. I say this, you're going to do this. And nothing wrong with that. Does not mean you should be a manager or a leader of that.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do programmers face when transitioning to management?
You're not fighter fighter anymore. You're letting your firefighters fight the battle while you, you know, block what's getting in your way.
Agreed. And and it's also I think that the. What I found too is that the people that are doing the work, whether it's a programmer, technician, whatever it might be, they have a different mindset too. They're task-driven. You're giving them something to do. They're doing it. They're not necessarily zooming out.
all the time seeing the bigger picture and understanding what is important about why they're doing what they're doing or also how to understand the significance of achieving the outcome. They've been given this task to do and that's their mindset is I need to get this done. So I think that there's certainly a different perspective that goes into it.
I agree. There is definitely a different mindset, different look at it. Definitely as a manager, you have to zoom out. You have to see the bigger picture. How does this decision impact the whole operation? As a program, you know, we look at systems. We look, okay, I got this moving. Impact this system. This system's good to go. And then we move on to the next one.
As a manager and supervisor, you're like, okay, is my team being efficient? That means across all systems, not just that individual system or that individual project. Are they learning? Is the environment safe for them? Are they thriving? Do they have the resources they need? Is their computer running slow? Do they have the proper IDE for them?
Do they have the access to the resources and the repositories and all that stuff? That's our role now, thinking as managers, leaders. Not that, okay, got this system or this project moving forward, it's going through stages, cool, I'm done. put a bow on that, go on the next one and keep moving.
Absolutely. And, and, you know, one of the things that I've seen people struggle with too, is we want to get the job done, but we want programmers tend to be about the, the outcome, the quality, the, the, the aesthetics of it, not necessarily about getting it done quickly and profitably, if you will. whatever that, whatever profitably means.
But managers are driven more about, hey, I need you to get this done because this is the time allotted, whether there's a cost associated with it or whether it's in a schedule to get done because we have to move on to the next thing. So that can also be a little bit of an inner conflict that you have to deal with it.
Before we wrap up, can you maybe share, I shared in our last episode about when I was at a crossroads about continuing to be a programmer or shifting to run a company. It wasn't that long ago that you moved out of being a programmer to being a manager. What was that thought process?
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