Crazy arithmetics.

[izard]

All numbers below are my estimates. Let's divide s/w engineers to two halves - 50% of "good" and 50% of "bad". For simplicity, I don't account for average ones, ignore the continuum and reduce the problem to one dimension. These three omissions make results almost absolutely unreliable, but still fun.

80% of bad engineers want to switch to management. (The rest think they are good engineers - D-K).
20% of good engineers want to switch to management. (Different reasons).
50% of bad engineers who want to switch to management, do become a manager. (Persistence is key, but some bad engineers still won't make it).
80% of good engineers who want to switch to management, do become a manager. (They are good engineers because they are smart and can reach their goals).
20% of bad engineers who switched to management, are good managers. (Being a manager is a different skill).
50% of good engineers who switched to management, are good managers. (It is a different skill, but being smart helps).

Few multiplies, and voila:
Percentage of managers with "bad engineer" background ~= 71%, and ~29% were good engineers in their previous life.
However, with numbers above (I swear I didn't tune them) half of good managers were formerly good engineers.

Comments

[tobotras]

You here assume that 100% of managers has engineering background. Huh?

[izard]

That is how it always worked for me in last 20 years at Nortel Intel and Apple.

[dennisgorelik]

Managers are coming from different professions, not only from programming.

[izard]

Maybe, but I never seen counter examples in my career path, never in 20 years.

[outputlogic]

>> Let's divide s/w engineers to two halves - 50% of "good" and 50% of "bad". For simplicity...

I think it's not really an accurate assumption. The distribution is more like normal or log-normal, with 10% very good and very bad, and 80% average. Or maybe 15/15/70, something like that.

>> 80% of bad engineers want to switch to management...

I think at least half of the engineers don't want to switch anywhere. They're either comfortable as is, or count down days to retirement.

Also, many engineers who switch to managers are really "mangineers". That is, half of the time they individually contributing something, and they manage projects (but not people) in whatever time is left.

[izard]

Totally agree about distribution/continuum.

Regarding switching, my main point was that I've seen one pattern very very often: a clearly mediocre engineer understands his limitations in the field, wants to switch to management (or sometimes it is about EB1 vs EB2 path :):) ), performs a transition and sometimes even makes into a good manager.

Your last point is also very well noted I think.