Should Managers Still Code?

This month we have a mailbag question from a reader who asks: Hi James, Your newsletter "being in the details" resonated with me. I would like to ask your opinion about managers writing code. I skim PRs but don’t critically review them and don’t write code. Should EMs write code in their day job? Thanks! It's a great question, and given the higher scrutiny we've seen on the role of engineering managers in the past few years, it's worth spending some time on it. Before we go any deeper, the short answer is that it depends exactly on what you mean by coding. I think that there is a big difference between being in the code and writing code. All managers should be in the code, but not all managers should be writing code. But spending some time digging into the nuances of the question can, I think, highlight both the practical aspects of ensuring that managers are sufficiently in the code, and, more importantly, identify the existential worry that many engineering managers may have abou ... Read full article.