Great article James. I honestly think it's pretty relative, depending on the needs of the team and very situational. E.g. a team with 2-3 team members in a growing startup might need an EM who could spend more time on the tech side of things, whereas a team with 7-8 Senior or Staff Engineers that needs to figure out what to do might require the EM to focus more on Strategy and alignment vs coding. Also, spending time more on the coding side would defeat the purpose of having those senior engineers.
Generally speaking, I agree with you that an EM in 2025 needs more detail; however, I'm not sure that coding or being involved in code reviews is always a good thing.
Great article James. I honestly think it's pretty relative, depending on the needs of the team and very situational. E.g. a team with 2-3 team members in a growing startup might need an EM who could spend more time on the tech side of things, whereas a team with 7-8 Senior or Staff Engineers that needs to figure out what to do might require the EM to focus more on Strategy and alignment vs coding. Also, spending time more on the coding side would defeat the purpose of having those senior engineers.
Generally speaking, I agree with you that an EM in 2025 needs more detail; however, I'm not sure that coding or being involved in code reviews is always a good thing.