How much development should a "Development Manager" be doing?

Question

I've been a development manager for a few years. Even though I spend quite a bit of time coding, I know a lot of managers who do not code at all. Some of them I consider great managers and look up to. While spending a lot of time on "Management" activities, keeping up with coding takes a lot of effort outside of work. So my question is:

Is it really necessary for development manager to write code? If yes, then how much? Is it necessary for development manager to stay technical (write code in his spare time)?

Note based on comment: Development Manager - manager of a software development team whose main responsibility does not include writing coding (Project Plans, Budgets, Interaction with Clients/Business, project goal setting, etc...)

Answer 1

How much? Probably none.

That doesn't mean they should be (or should be allowed to be) ignorant of code and the architecture. The better development managers can descrie the technical architecture (at least to a high level) and are aware of all "macro" changes being made (ie those affecting usage, features, non-trivial bugs and so on).

The job of a development manager is to manage the team and be an advocate for the team to management and the business. It's not to write code.

Answer 2

Define the role and how large your team is. if you're doing well as is, then to a first approximation I'd say "as much as you're doing." Are you having to work extra hours to keep up? Then you're probably developing too much.

Generally more than about 5 people on the team means the manager won't hve much development time.

Answer 3

In my opinion the development manager shouldnt be doing production code, however they should at least be familiar with the technologies used and be able to read and understand the code that their team is creating.

When I was a junior developer I got stung a few times where my dev manager decided to go and fill up my nice clean fast web app with a ton of javascript he'd found on the net the night before release. It broke the app.

On the other hand I've had dev managers who have no idea about any of the technologies in use in our projects, whose management style is basically "Is it done yet?" and "Why is it taking so long? If we were using Oracle Forms 2 like I did, it'd be done by now!"

Answer 4

Is it necessary for a development manager to write code?

No its not.

Although it does happen in some cases, maybe lots of cases. I suspect that mostly development managers that moved up the ranks in the same company end up doing code. Or managers that have very small teams.

In a perfect world this would not occur, how can you have your brain working on a knotty little problem and have it worrying wether or not other programmers are getting their work done.

In reality a Development Manager should be there to see the big picture, to get rid of blocking elements in their programmers way. To make the developers themselves productive and to provide a conduit to upper management.

Answer 5

Short answer: no.

If you are a team lead for a very small team, you'd better still be the coding expert. So in that scenario, yes, you should keep coding so you know all the module architecture inside out.

A development manager can be excellent as a people person or/and as an architect. They may have not coded one line of code in years. Getting the team to agree to a direction, getting other departments within the company to support and provide the resources to get the development job done right. These are all tasks that a good development manager can accomplish.

In other words, protecting the developers so they are free to code is a great achievement for their manager. No coding involved.