> Business types with none to little engineering experience should never, under any circumstances, manage engineers
In my experience as a developer at a bunch of different companies, the worst managers have actually been the opposite -- they were ex-engineers who knew nothing about management and decided to become managers for the wrong reasons (small raise, more power, etc), and had no passion for management. The longer one's career, the more one comes to respect managers, I think, and understand what a skill it is unto itself. Many young engineers have times when they feel hostile towards management or even the idea of having a "boss" at all, but that just makes the situation worse. One needs to have a more collaborative attitude to succeed. Again, it's the ex-engineers who think managements is just "common sense" are the ones you need to steer clear of.
In my experience as a developer at a bunch of different companies, the worst managers have actually been the opposite -- they were ex-engineers who knew nothing about management and decided to become managers for the wrong reasons (small raise, more power, etc), and had no passion for management. The longer one's career, the more one comes to respect managers, I think, and understand what a skill it is unto itself. Many young engineers have times when they feel hostile towards management or even the idea of having a "boss" at all, but that just makes the situation worse. One needs to have a more collaborative attitude to succeed. Again, it's the ex-engineers who think managements is just "common sense" are the ones you need to steer clear of.