Ask HN: Did someone work in a team without any manager?

1 points by shankr ↗ HN
Has someone worked in a team without any manager but just senior team members? How did it go?

2 comments

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Yes. It was great while it lasted. It was a 'sre/devops' team that had a supposed manager that had no impact (positive or negative) on the team. I say "while it lasted" because it's not sustainable. At some point you need someone to step in an separate two ego maniacs who have almost come to blows over difference of opinion. And you need to have some plan to grow the team (headcount and individual careers) or the happy-go-lucky sre/devops team that builds all the stuff and puts out all the fires get fucked in the IPO and wonder where all their money is. "It isn't! You see, you're only an L3! How did you not know that?" "Well, because when they brought in levels, I assumed mine would line up with the hiring rubric for levels - and I make my impact on the company L6. I suppose I never checked, and nobody officially communicated it to me. I was head-down working on important stuff and loving my work". "Yeah, well they put you as a L3, and our team didn't have a manager who hired people or went through promotions (or any of that boring stuff)".

Edit: I will say though - having no manager is better than having a shit manager. I've had so many of those, that I still look back at ^ that situation (until the dream ended) with fondness. We built some great stuff and worked well together.

Yeah I feel like our manager is negative addition to our team and I was thinking of suggesting my CTO to try no manager policy. The manager just throws out random idea and then we have to make an effort in proving why the idea is not worth pursuing. Also we feel like some stuff gets lost middle way when going through the manager. I knew the manager didn't have necessary experience and wanted to give the manager benefit of doubt but it has been almost a year and I don't see much improvement.