Middle management roles are also a trap.
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Middle management roles, like Tech Lead Management roles before them, are argued to be a career trap for engineers aiming to become executives. While middle managers develop important skills — balancing stakeholder pressure, managing resources, and defining processes — these are insufficient for executive effectiveness. The most critical executive skills (domain expertise, driving execution, building organizational culture) are actually easier to develop as a line manager. Middle management environments often actively discourage the behaviors that make great executives, inadvertently filtering out the best executive candidates. The advice: spend a little time in middle management, but don't linger — it prepares you for more middle management, not executive leadership.
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Why is middle management considered a trap for engineers who want to become executives?
Middle management develops skills like balancing stakeholder pressure, resource allocation, and process design — necessary but insufficient for executive effectiveness. The most critical executive skills — domain expertise, driving execution, and building organizational culture — are easier to master as a line manager. Middle management environments actively discourage these behaviors, labeling deep execution focus as micromanagement and domain depth as neglecting stakeholders, inadvertently filtering out the best executive candidates. Engineers weighing the middle management path toward executive roles track perspectives like this on daily.dev.