One of my LinkedIn connection shared this no bullshit profile that I totally loved. This person tells a compelling story about his career without wasting his words or the reader's time. In a time when there is so much embellishment of accomplishments and self-aggrandization all untethered to reality, this was refreshing. It takes someone very comfortable in their skin to state they stopped learning much once they reached a certain level in their career - this should inspire confidence in anyone who wants to hire the person. Middle managers have always been that precarious position where their contributions can't be measured clearly, but they make too much money. The most important issue that is not talked about as much is they stop learning making their situation that much worse.
After dealing with people management and all the administrivia that goes with it, the average middle manager has little capacity left to keep their skills sharp. Every once in a while, I run into a person in this level who clearly understands that they are on very thin ice and work extra hard to drive direct, measurable value. My thoughts turned to my friend A who most recently started to post a learning curriculum he has worked on as his side project in his non-existent spare time. His aims to make software development understandable to one and all because a lot of decision makers in his company come from non-technical backgrounds that make decisions that result in tremendous hardship for engineering teams tasked with delivering. A is a long suffering middle-manager who is caught up between these opposing forces decided to do something about it, started learning again and is now trying to teach others.
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