Comment by bensonperry

agree, but agree with another reply that it doesn't even seem like technical competency is the skill used outside of potentially engineering. feels like optimizing for "managing up" (which is code for "making people above you happy" and doesn't necessarily correlate with delivering any type of value) is what these managers do. in other R&D roles (design, product) most managers i've met aren't actually gifted at executing in an IC context