Do you prefer your manager to be technical or non technical?

I’d say once you have a good manager or executive it pays dividends not just in work life balance but the desire to explore other options (eg always looking for more money/etc) fades away.

And I find it easier to manage a non-technical manager versus a technical manager.

Anecdotally the very best and the very worst managers I had were not technical. Instead my technical managers, think ex-engineers, were on average from mediocre (new to the role) to good (experienced).

I built a mental model that the difference between non technical EMs and technical ones is that the distribution of quality is broader for the former. I suspect people skills is the real leverage.

Anyhow engineers have little influence on deciding which kind of manager they are gonna get, so it's better to focus on what we can control and learn the secret art of how to manage your manager.

Ok, so then why put them in charge of a software company?

That's because they are a non-technical manager who doesn't trust you.

I think there are two archetypes that work on the technical vs non-technical dimension:

Good: Technical, but has actually done the work (or does it currently) and is able to. In software that means they can program, set stuff up, debug things. Will be more experienced and coach, or smoothly bridges the gap between social and technical challenges.

Bad: Technical, but only "high level" and can't do the nitty gritty work but will make bad technical decisions that pushes you into a corner. Will demand concrete technical solutions instead of stating goals.

Good: Non technical, but hands off and actually trusts experts. Knows people well and how to handle tricky situations. Keeps the BS away. Approaches projects with a calm, organized fashion. Tries to take good opportunities and doesn't cling to bad decisions.

Bad: Non technical, but will constantly demand explanations, 'sell' deadlines and deliverables before consulting workers. Demands specific solutions instead of stating problems clearly. Thinks primarily about cost and efficiency instead of value and growth.

For some people, it's speaking money

For others, it's speaking tech [enough] to understand frustrations the team (or team member) is going through

For others, it's conveying the business reason(s) behind [non]technical decisions

Etc

In any case, my personal answer is definitely technical but with caveats that I won't repeat as others have made solid arguments and the additional caveat that I would prefer a technical vs. non-technical lead any day.

This is partly based on experience and partly based on my personal feelings. I feel more inspired by leaders who have been in the trenches before. Also, in my personal experience (emphasis on personal) I've noticed that non-technical leaders tend to have a chip on their shoulder about technical issues which leads them to either 1) devalue (often publicly through statements) technical ability or 2) take any criticism or negative feedback personally (in some cases, HR have gotten involved as there were accusations of *-ism).

Long term the latter doesn't scale. The CTO won't know all of what his direct knows as well as the directs of the directs. The CEO won't know all of what the CTO knows, plus the CFO and the CISO. Etc.

An architect building a new office building hasn't personally done what every sub contractor and specialist has done, and yet makes decisions of their directions.

A strong hands on technical manager who can mentor plus lead plus deal with external bureaucracy is as rare as such a person working 80 hour weeks is common.

It's also easier with smaller teams and leaner environments without a zillion meetings.

I'm a previously-technical, and now less so tech manager and that's my experience. It's a trade off in terms of time and investment in skills.

Not to mention the technology changes constantly, leading to more non work homework if you need to stay relevant.

Manager is either smart or not.

Guess which one I prefer to have.

I had many non technical managers stuck in their ideas from '70s or from condoms production lines. Non technical managers should either adapt to the industry's dynamics or go elsewhere. They burn a lot of time of the team.

But an unexperienced team does require a manager, of any kind.

None of these things need technical skills. In fact, if I can't explain what I'm doing without getting deeply technical, then I question whether I'm doing the right thing _or_ if how I'm doing it needs to be simplified.

In my experience, bad managers will hide negative feedback to avoid upsetting you, cow-tow to their management when they have grievances with you or want to waste your time, will phone in 1x1s and will generally just be a roadblock.

One of the best managers I ever had was non-technical. She was very good at building people. Rare skill.

The worst manager I ever had was super technical but profoundly unable to relate to people. What I want most in a manager is (a) management skill, and (b) empathy.

It would be nice also if they’re technical, but a good manager can work around that limitation. A bad manager can’t work around whatever their limitations are. And everyone has limitations.

A manager's job is not to be more technical that you, it's to manage multiple parts of a project and it's people. Of course they know what they are talking about- but often they have the people skills to get past the interviews.

I would much rather have a manager that understands the domain of the business and have some technical background/domain knowledge so that they understand the conversation mostly, than having one thinking they are "in charge" of the technical solution and team decisions. Nothing is more annoying than a technical manager to dictates down very specific architecture/stack/implementation decisions down to a technical team [specifically one of senior engineers, specialists, and trained architects]. Sure you can get this with both A & B, but B's trend more over-involved.

A non-technical manager, however, should come with other skills often missing in strictly "technical" ones... specifically the management/strategic ones. Too often you have a manager who was just a technical lead and jumped up to a management role without learning management, perhaps for salary/career development/etc. In these cases, even if they don't dominate the technical discussion as suggested above, they can lack key project/roadmap/strategic skills and experience which basically make them more of a "middle-man" than a manager.

A well-functioning development team or set of teams should more or less be able to make all the needed technical decisions and advise up to the manager and CTO-level roles not only what but why. The CTO and development-side management (again, I am arguing technical knowledgable, but non-tech) should be taking the expert advise from their developers and doing the big-picture strategic stuff. Likewise, they should be bring "problems" (feature ideas, needs that a customer or market is not being used, pain points, long term goals) to the developers for vetting, solution gathering, and implementation advise. As such there is a two way dialog. The management level gathers "outside" data and requirements and informs strategy and goals and the development team provides implementation, architecture, solution advise [or alternatives, as factors such as recurring costs or time to implement all play roles on the business end], and, well, the actual code/solution. The development team is able to focus on their domain/codebase/etc. without having to deal much with the "outside world."

Mind you, I am talking about manager and not "team lead". Leads should always be senior and know at least one software domain to an expert level [i.e. if a web application team, the lead can be front end, back end, or ops, but should know enough of all three domains, even if expert in only one]. Leads should still have a hand in code. Some orgs have leads to help bridge light management function and development expertise, but it depends on the org.

So going back to OPs experience, the non-technical manager is the one lacking. They should have more understanding of what the engineers are talking about.

However, these were technical people who had done the same job at a more junior level. They knew enough to know my job, but not enough to know the exact details of everything I was doing.

Now that you ask, I'm not sure any of that matters.

The best qualities a manager can have are to get along with you, trust you, support your growth, have good ideas, and challenge you to be better. None of those are technical skills.

His superpower? He listened. All the time. When he didn't fully understand something, he would ask for an explanation. That forced me to pause for a moment, reevaluate why I'm doing something a certain way, and then explain it to him -- in a doc, in graphics, in a presentation, whatever was required. Yes, that took a bit of time (a few hours here and there), but in the end it made our team much stronger because everyone -- devs, designers, managers, marketers -- began to better understand the value of why we're doing things a certain way. It made our architecture simpler and clearer too, because those pauses made us reevaluate and optimize our designs, if only to be able to more easily explain them.

Then, once he understood a concept, he would be able to translate it into business-speak to sell it to the higher-ups and other departments. That's the part of the job I would never want to do -- engage in corporate BSing -- but he was good at that, and didn't mind it, and was able to clearly defend our choices to anyone who asked.

Over time I started to think of my manager not as "the guy who tells me what to do" but "the guy who advocates for us against other departments". Interpersonal communication is a huge (and difficult) skillset that many devs undervalue, but when speaking to non-technical audiences (like much of management, if you're not in a pure-tech company), being able to translate effectively is a big deal.

If your manager is super technical but not a good communicator, a lot of your efforts will get roadblocked or overridden by other priorities because your manager wasn't able to clearly communicate their value.

If you can have both, great! That's the best of both worlds. If I were forced to choose, though, I'd choose the better communicator over the more technically skilled, every time.

Skills and technical complexity can be taught to anyone who's reasonably competent and intelligent. It's much harder to teach them effective interpersonal communication skills, IMO.