Does this make sense?
The last place I worked does something that I think is a tad odd. From everything that I could see, at least on the team that I was working, the process seems to be to take the best programmers and make them senior members of the team. On the surface this seems like a reasonable thing to do. Except, that becoming a senior member means that you do less programming. Put another way, they take their best problem solvers, the people who really like to solve problems and put them into a position where they have to delegate those problems to other people. Am I the only one who thinks this is a little odd?
The real question I have, I guess, is is this the way other organizations work? I really can’t see my experience being that different. My guess is that other companies take the best programmers, the best problem solvers, and consistently promote them to be managers effectively taking away any chance of programming or solving problems (well, at least real problems). If this is the case, I can see why a lot of the best programmers don’t go into management.
