Rant About Non-Technical Managers in an IT company
Non-technical managers who are not willing to learn basic technical concepts have no place in the IT industry, period.
Disclaimer: This rant is specifically aimed at the shallow, unqualified managers who waltz into leadership roles without the necessary experience or understanding of the technical world. If you’re a manager who truly collaborates, learns, and respects your tech team, this isn’t about you. It’s about those who don’t. So, please don’t take it personally.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard managers blame the tech team for not delivering on time. Why? Because they don’t understand the complexities behind the systems, and they throw out deadlines like they’re handing out candy. If IT management was made up of people who actually had technical experience, maybe — just maybe — our estimates would make sense. Maybe our solutions would be built with an understanding of scalability, security, and maintenance, with a glance towards the future.
I’m not a healthcare professional. I don’t go to hospitals claiming I can lead a group of doctors perform open-heart surgery. If I tried, they’d laugh me out the door, right? Because I have no background, no training, no anatomy knowledge. They’d tell me to go to med school, jump through hoops, pass tests, and prove I could save a dummy’s “life”. Only then might I have a chance of even becoming a surgeon. If someone hired me to perform surgery without any qualifications, it would be a disaster — loss of human lives.
So why does the same thing pass in IT companies? Some people claim they can manage a team of engineers because they claimed they filled in a position for a manager in another company. Others have
So why, in IT, do we allow non-technical people to waltz in, take leadership roles, and pretend they know what they’re doing? Sure, the damage isn’t immediately fatal, but don’t kid yourself into thinking it’s harmless. It’s financial. It’s time. It’s employee’s well-being. That manager running around bossing engineers around? Stress levels in the tech team are through the roof. And here’s the kicker: these managers, with no technical experience, stay long enough in a company and start climbing the ladder. They’re handed titles, like “Product Owner” or “Project Manager.” Then they eventually leave, having done nothing but leave chaos in their wake.
And here’s what really gets me — they don’t know how to RTFM. They don’t care about discipline, best practices, or the sheer complexity of the systems we build. What they do care about is playing “boss.” And they’re trusted. They’re seen as the decision-makers while the actual tech experts get left in the dust.
These non-tech managers start hiring other non-tech people to maintain their little empires. They surround themselves with like-minded people who similarly try to get by. They have no clue what they’re doing but are grateful to have a job. When things go wrong, it’s the tech team’s fault. But when things go right? Oh, they take the credit. Eventually they get the money and run when the thing hits the fan.
They don’t collaborate. They just sit there asking, “Is the task done yet?” If you ask for input or suggest collaboration, they’ll remind you of the “expected seniority” or “responsibilities” — you know, the ones they’re not even capable of comprehending, much less doing. And you just sit there thinking: “I am again alone in this.”
In this day and age, it should be blindingly obvious that anyone in a product owner or management position at an IT company either needs to deeply understand the tech side or put in the effort to learn it. Period. The people in power should be those who’ve worked on multiple systems, seen the chaos that can ensue, and know how to prevent it. They should be people who aren’t afraid to say “no” to higher-ups when something’s a bad idea, or explain why something is difficult or impossible before it spirals into a mess.
They need to know what a server-client architecture is. They should be able to step in, even at a high level, and manage expectations. IT isn’t just “make this thing happen,” it’s timelines, constraints, scalability, and a whole list of things non-technical managers don’t even consider.
IT companies don’t need more buzzword-spouting managers. We need people who get it — who know the technology, the systems, and the real-world constraints. Only then will we stop living in this perpetual cycle of unrealistic expectations and burnout.
