Do you expect your frontline manager to be a Subject Matter Expert?

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Dragonsong3k@reddit

Gray beard director here... I follow these rules and they work out very well. 1. Supervisors should be SMEs - preferably hiring from the mainline staff pool if they show leadership). - Carry a 50% field workload. (Tickets etc...) Other 50pct is escalations and fires. 2. Managers should not be SME - but be well versed enough to understand pain points of the staff. - Only promote supervisors who have management experience or hire from outside the team.) - 0% Frontline workload. All management. These rules cover the Peter Principle and Span of Control principal. Also team fulfilment because they see a path of growth.

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SnooMachines9133@reddit

What's your definition of supervisor vs manager? Are they both people managers with HR responsibilities, or just the manager? This is probably nomenclature matter. I've seen some places refer to these roles differently, even in the same company and department.

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Dragonsong3k@reddit

You are right. A supervisor has the following duties IMO. Is a highly knowledgeable person in the specific knowledge area that the department covers. Is an escalation point for the team. Is able to liase with other supervisors in other departments. Is responsible to fill in for short staff situation. Can fill in temporarily for a manager. Note the can vs is. The "can" statements are based on the relationship between the manger and the supervisor and/or company policy. A manager Is responsible for measuring KPIs. Is responsible for managing back office stuff like approving time off, expenses, department budget. Is responsible for establishing department policies and vision.

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Cyberspew@reddit

Sounds methodical and well thought out. Just curious, how do your supervisors get the required management experience to get promoted into management?

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majornerd@reddit

I tend to believe in teach down, learn up. Question both ways. It has worked for me very well. A slider should exist that goes from tactical to strategic and slides toward strategy as you move up in the org. The speed is relative to the size of the org. In small orgs a VP may be hands on sometimes, in a large one a manager may be completely hands off. The most important thing is nobody in leadership should remove an employees agency. Leaders should grade themselves on the success of their people, rather than their own success.

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Dragonsong3k@reddit

Great question! Depends on the org. The rarest form is actual management training. I mean structured. There are consultants you can hire to do these things. Another approach is n+1 training. Meaning the director or senior manager would do the training. I have given talks about IT leadership to orgs in the past and I don't like the cycle of promote to failure. Especially in IT. The hardest lesson for techs to learn is that at some point they are not techs anymore. That transition has to be nurtured. I have found in my career that if you give most people a good intro and expectations are set, they are generally agreeable and can manage. (not all, not everyone is cut out for management and that's ok).

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yeti-rex@reddit

Yes to all this. The supervisors that report to me I treat as flex staff. If the team is down people today, the supervisor can fill in. Otherwise, I try to keep them out of the queue. The supervisors actively keep me out of the queue. In the last few months I've had to distance and allow the sysadmins be sysadmins and the supervisors be supervisors.

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Dragonsong3k@reddit

Supervisors are the secret weapon. We just have to remember that they need management training. They will save the teams hide. ![gif](giphy|pRwwxbrQsvlFCPxS3x|downsized)

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xThompx@reddit

How do I work for you? Lol I’m a tech that’s become a SME for some of our largest clients (MSP environment) but can’t get promoted to a supervisor role because I’m full remote. Our structure is broken at best, with supervisors essentially taking client meetings for a majority of the day and not acting as SME at all. We also have upper management but they are definitely more so people managers rather than technically savvy folks. We run into issue where if a ticket needs to be escalated beyond our T2 team (myself currently) we reach our supervisor who inevitably doesn’t respond before escalating to T3 and losing visibility on the ticket. At times I think I should be looking to run rather than climb upwards and join the circus.

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Background-Slip8205@reddit

SME's usually make terrible bosses. The worst management and worst run companies I've worked for just promote tech people who have been there a long time. Management is a skill that requires talent and more importantly, education and training, just like any other position. Just because someone knows how Linux works doesn't mean they should be a DBA. Just because someone knows how to set up a meeting doesn't mean they should be a manager. A proper manager went to college for it, and knows more about budgeting, finance, managing people, projects, how to lead and motivate, understands sales/vendor relations, ect. They don't have to understand IT, that's your job. They just have to trust you, and you have to be able to take complex issues and dumb them down into normal speak. If they're real properly trained managers and they start to learn some IT stuff, great, but I'll take someone who barely passed their MBA over the most intelligent IT admin any day of the week when it comes to leadership and management.

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Assumeweknow@reddit

Sme for fronline typically gets paid 142 to 300k so yes...

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Hotshot55@reddit

No, people managers are for managing people. If you want an SME, hire an individual contributor to be the SME.

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cederian@reddit

Also, unless requested, do not try to push SME into Management, it’s a totally different beast. I, personally, declined it every time I was asked to move from Tech to Mgmt, even if it was not the proper political move in the organization (IBM, EY, AWS)

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randopop21@reddit

Yes, in most cases, always choose happiness! I was a techie; hated being in management. The extra pay as good, but it still made me less happy.

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dorradorrabirr@reddit

Great, here's Jen from accounting. She'll be your new manager.

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PersonBehindAScreen@reddit

Adding on: This is why orgs have technical leadership vs people leadership once teams and scope is big enough. Your senior engineers or team lead already fill the former as it is. Likewise with staff/principal engineers and architects

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CaucasianHumus@reddit

God wish my boss got this. She tried to be a SME but has not done any engineering in 10 years. The amount of ahit we have to clean up is too damn high.

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cbass377@reddit

Do I, no not really. Do they expect it if you are the manager in question, absolutely.

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qreaas@reddit

A good manager will lead by example and back up their team. In small org: lead by doing, backing up team In large org: lead by backing up team, doing By doing and knowing what everyone is talking about when backing up team, a good manager will understand “real” time value.

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michaelpaoli@reddit

Not necessarily. Manager needn't be technical/sysadmin expert. Mostly they just need to know enough to ask good questions, make good decisions, directly or indirectly hire good people, make good relevant business and personnel decisions, generally budget properly, etc. E.g. best damn manager I ever had, when I was \*nix sysadmin (along with a few others under that manager), that manager was no expert at all in the ways of \*nix (had a mainframe background). But dang well knew enough to ask the right questions and make darn good decisions. *That*'s what matters in a good/excellent manager. Technical expertise can always be found/had - it needn't be with the manager of the technical folks. Also, may often get promoted from technical roles to management roles. That's often a *bad* decision. *Very* different skill sets, so many fine technical folks don't make for good manager. In fact it's relatively rare to find folks that are very to exceedingly good at both. >Do you expect them to know how to at least do your job? Oh *hell* no. Most places I've worked I've been if not the top technically, quite high up there technically among my peers - e.g. typically well within the top 10% or so. I can think of damn few jobs/positions I've ever held where my manager was more technical, in the relevant, than me, and most of the time my manager wouldn't even know how to my job - or at least would't know how to do substantial parts of it, if not much or even most of it. Let's see, of all my (40+) years in IT ... I can think of ... *one* ... only one manager I ever had that was more technical in the highly relevant for my job/role, that myself. That was many moons ago, quite early in my career, and wasn't a sysadmin job, though it well leveraged my technical and engineering skills (of which I had many, but no degree), my manager was an actual degreed electrical engineer and knew the company inside out, so well had me beat for that role at that time.

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jdptechnc@reddit

Absolutely not. Depending on department/company size, maybe there is an expectation of a frontline team leader to be somewhat hands-on (having enough proficiency in something that the team handles to be able to speak for it or handle some tasks while people are out), but I wouldn't require them to be the SME.

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VA_Network_Nerd@reddit

Must first ask the question: Is your boss intended to be a SME, or are the intended to be a people-manager? If you have adequate Senior Engineers or Architects on staff, the manager can focus on managing. But, in smaller org-structures, sometimes the manager also have to perform as an SME.

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CasualEveryday@reddit

In smaller orgs the manager will organically be the SME for some things even if they don't currently handle those things just because people have to cross train and managers tend to be the ones with time to do it well.

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oldmangamer74@reddit

Especially for legacy systems (especially if they are on the way out) that newer staff don’t have the knowledge of and have more important and newer technologies to focus on.

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CasualEveryday@reddit

Yep. I'm still the SME on some older stuff I built a decade ago and nobody I have hired is going to learn it other than cross training.

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Puzzleheaded-Dog-728@reddit

Yes, yes, and yes. He's also me. I'm the boss, and expected to be SME, coach, MVP, etc. I feel like it's always been this way but I've only been doing this for 20 years, and only had someone above me for about 4 of those

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Sir-Spork@reddit

My organisation expects you to be. Your life will be hell if it isn’t

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Warsum@reddit

Surprised at all the Nos. On my network engineering team there is only 3 people. 2 engineers and the boss. Boss has to be an SME because the work load is insane for a 2 man team. His upper management doesn't get that though. If he ever leaves oh man the shit that will explode. I honestly don't know what I'd do if and when that day came. Guy is one of the smartest I've ever met and is worth 3-5 engineers at least. Upper management just lets him run because well hopefully they make it to retirement before he leaves then that's someone else's problem.

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Thick_Yam_7028@reddit

How fo you manage something you dont understand? Sounds oxy moronic.

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LeTrolleur@reddit

I expect this for help desk team leaders/managers, they should be a point to which their team can escalate tickets to before they reach other teams. Other teams can have a lot more specific knowledge, so I can allow managers not knowing everything their team does.

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libertyprivate@reddit

No. I'm the SME. I do the work and he keeps me from being in meetings and let's me point to him when people make direct requests. We make each other look good and it comes from a place of doing what we're good at and letting the other person do what they're good at.

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learn-by-flying@reddit

I expect my manager to understand 80% of my job, and be able to be hands on 20% of the time if needed.

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F0rkbombz@reddit

SME? No. But they should have technical experience and understand fundamentals to ensure good decision making and planning.

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madknives23@reddit

Yes but they never are.

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unknown_anaconda@reddit

My boss and his boss both came up through the ranks from help desk to VP. They're out of date on the details of the tech we currently us but they could do the job at one time. We're a SaaS company though, even the CEO has a tech background.

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IdentityEng@reddit

We recently changed this in our megacorp, went with Chapter Leads as your 'boss' but the TPO or Technology Product Owners still actually run the team and that's who you'll be working with and assigning you work and acutally 'employs' you. So the people management stuff like policy, calling in sick, all the daily people management stuff is now on this Chapter Lead who you barely even know or ever talk to and that leaves the TPO to be more technical and actually know about what they run. There are 'non technical TPOs', basically managers who just trust their SMEs to decide and do everything but honestly I don't personally respect them much and neither do most others. If you're going to own the stack and make the choices about it on behalf of our company then you should have the technical background and experience on par if not better than the top SMEs, you're an Architect pretty much except your permenantly assigned to this chunk of infastructure. My path is to TPO and I interviewed for the Chapter Lead but they said no, we think you're more of a TPO because I'm an Engineer and highly technical SME, not a middle manager, people manager type.

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kombiwombi@reddit

I don't think it matters. The key question is if they are good at management.

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moofishies@reddit

This *completely* depends on the size of the company and team. There's a massive difference between a manager of a team of 10+ people and a manager of 2-3 people.

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voodoo1982@reddit

Frankly a line manager who doesn’t know the material to be able to assign weighted points for its work shouldn’t be a line manager.

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daven1985@reddit

No. A good manager knows when your ideas are good or bad, and if they work well for the company direction. But equally important they need to know when to call bullshit on someone or the company. If they knew everything you did why would you be there?

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dwarftosser77@reddit

You can't be a good boss if you don't understand the work your people are doing IMO.

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macemillianwinduarte@reddit

At my small org (1500 employees) managers have to be experts on their area so they can fill in for people who are out, or have things escalated.

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rosseloh@reddit

We've got ~700 and a team of 4 on my side (infrastructure, there's three others on the software side and then the director of IT over it all) so my boss *has* to be an SME, because he's a vital part of the team sometimes. But it also helps that he started in the trenches and has been here for 30 years. Best of both worlds, almost - he's still able to do the work when necessary, but also has been in the business long enough that he knows how it all works and was originally designed. It would be lovely to be a big enough team to actually have separation of duties but...well.

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macemillianwinduarte@reddit

Basically the same situation here. Often times I'm the one who figures stuff out. Just more experience

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MDParagon@reddit

No? At least she/he has to know what I'm doing or understand it at a glance or see it from an eagle's eye If you wanted an SME get a consultant or a specialist

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Beanor@reddit

this begs the larger question on if its valid to even have expectations of other people. ultimately, this boils down to the culture of the company or organization. ME: I have been disappointed enough to move without expectation. Expertise is a moving target that only the box checkers see the most benefit from. My tribe of tech is more interested in outcomes than status.

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Public_Fucking_Media@reddit

I mean sure but reality is very often that amenable, I've been at this a very long time and I can SME for a lot of things that they may not be as *E* at....

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Regular-Nebula6386@reddit

No l, but mine is and won’t train or provide access to anyone who wants to become SME. If he goes on vacation, projects screech to a halt. Once when he was away, I was told by the director to take care of a infrastructure-related request , which I promptly did and life continues as normal al, except when he came back I got in trouble. I had to forward the email I had received from the Director to get him off my back. He promptly changed the password of the break-glass super user account.

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SithLordDooku@reddit

Speaking as a SME manager, I create direction for the team. But I let engineers engineer. I don’t give input on the day to day. I set standards and expectations and help the engineers meet those. High level decisions are made by me and I allow the seniors to decide how we meet those initiatives. Since I am a SME, the plans do get reviewed for their effectiveness and if there is a difference of opinion in the weeds, I let peer review iron it out. I think it works well.

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Interesting-Yellow-4@reddit

My boss is, but I don't expect it. I'm just lucky. He came up from the ranks, and really knows his stuff. Really sharp still, though I fear he might retire soon and we get stuck with a beaurocrat.

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jkw118@reddit

I've had bosses who are sme on certain things, I've also had ones who know alot of general stuff.. and alot of basics all over... these tend to be half decent managers.. Then I've had managers who can't go to a command prompt..those were some of the worst.. most IT depts do not get all the money, so having a boss who has very limited knowledge of IT leaves you fd most of the time.. other dept head go to them with new projects, boss agrees, then you tell your boss it wont work with what we have.. or itll take x or y resources... their like you push a button make it go..

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funkyg73@reddit

No. My manager knows nothing about what my colleague and I do, but trusts us to get on with the job. He manages, we do.

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House-of-Suns@reddit

It depends on the size of your team and your environment I think. I’ve seen small teams of 2 or 3 people where the manager is really just a senior sysadmin who also manages. In that sort of scenario I’d expect the guy to know the ins and outs of just about everything. The larger the team and your IT setup though the less that applies.

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Stuckentb@reddit

No, can't be no matter the size. There is either a labeled subject matter expert or known one. Or there just isn't someone to lean on in that matter. This field is one in its own in that manner and should stopped being treated as a kitchen line.

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slav3269@reddit

Large financial org here. The best engineering managers are deeply technical and are SMEs in at least one thing. They can represent the team and contribute to team efforts. The best executives have significant technical knowledge, spend considerable time with technical staff, have and can convey technical vision.

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Most_Incident_9223@reddit

I am the boss and yes I'm the senior too. Smaller manufacturing company. I have 3 people. I think my team appreciates it but maybe not haha.

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ninjaluvr@reddit

They should be a subject matter expert in managing, yes.

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SkyrakerBeyond@reddit

Not a SME, but at least well enough versed to assign things to me or give me the direction I need to perform best. If you put a problem in front of me I will solve it, but I've been the manager before as well and those are two wildly different skillsets.

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NightH4nter@reddit

my boss is a dba. while i'm not, he's also the dba team's boss, and he does work himself (maybe less than others, idk) as a dba alongside management tasks

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floatingby493@reddit

I don’t expect them to be an SME, but I would expect the manager to have some familiarity with the tools we use. I’ve worked under managers who were completely clueless and it was not fun.

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davidm2232@reddit

I expect them to. Or at least be able to figure it out. But that pretty much never happens. So I get phone calls all week when I am on vacation.

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Rawme9@reddit

It depends. My boss doesn't know how to do my job fully but I'm confident could figure it out. He is still our networking SME though

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iliekplastic@reddit

Used to manage a restaurant. Every person working for me was usually better and more efficient at their job, but I knew enough about all their jobs since I crosstrained in all of them that I could confidently manage them and have a big picture view of things to make sure we remained profitable and meeting all our goals. Having that experience and having moved into IT, not a manager yet, I'm even more convinced that I wouldn't want a manager to be a technical SME typically. I'd rather have them be an IT generatlist first or a manager first.

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Substantial_Tough289@reddit

No, as you go up in the management ladder the less technical you become.

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BoilingJD@reddit

It feels like that's what recruiters want, despite that never being the case because people tend to get promoted until they get to a level they they suck at but too senior to let go and settle into mid management where they can feel important enough to matter but not given enough power to do serious damage, while the underlying team carries the weight of their incompetent boss, who may be a brilliant engineer, but utterly shit at managing people, he just said yea to promotion cause he like the moneeey

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SirLoremIpsum@reddit

> I imagine that the answer depends on the size of the organization and consequently the department and maybe even by industry. Very much so! I've had bosses that were basically just the most senior dude on the team that was more akin to team lead, and bosses that are straight management. I would never expect them to be the SME tho. That's not a good managers job. If you take the view that management is a skill, it can be done well and it takes time - no I do not expect my manager to be a SME in everything. In a few things... Sure

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djgizmo@reddit

no. he’s a team leader, not a tech tech.

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_ELAP_@reddit

My boss doesn’t know how to unzip a file so I’ll sit this one out.

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TheBestHawksFan@reddit

My boss is the CFO. No. She doesn’t know a lick. That’s my job.

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serverhorror@reddit

Is a Chef still able to cut onions? Would you follow a squad lead into combat, if they didn't know how to fire a gun? Would you want a head surgeon to have no idea how to actually execute a surgery? I think the, all too common, notion that managers don't need to be able to execute the job, is one of the largest sources of problems in IT.

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TireFryer426@reddit

No, I don't expect them to know. What they do need to know is how to listen to their subject matter experts. Managers are there to clear obstacles for individual contributors. My experience has been that typically companies will promote superstar tech guys into manager roles for retention. 99% of the time they make terrible managers because it is insanely difficult to give up control. For these reasons I'd rather my manager not be technically adept. I'd prefer them to be a good leader.

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red_the_room@reddit

I expect him to understand a bit, but mostly move the furniture that’s in my way.

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EmperorGeek@reddit

My Manager has a basic level of understanding of how the App I support works. Terrifyingly, he insists on having Administrator level access to it. He knows the base functions we can perform, but has never taken any of the training, rather he relies on ChatGPT to get information. Of course the answers he gets are based on the OLD UI so it’s fun to watch him stumble through doing anything. Fortunately there are three of us that are Certified in the App (no word on psych levels though!!).

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NaturalIdiocy@reddit

The type of person who excels at being a SME and the type of person who excels at being a manager... typically are two different types of people.

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Pure_Fox9415@reddit

In small business or understaffed environment preferably yes, in any other situation no. Just average and general knowledge is enough. But a "pure management" person without IT background usually is a disaster.

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sryan2k1@reddit

A boss can, but does not need to be highly technical. It really depends on the org. They should trust their team(s) to do their job and communicate effectively.

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feelingoodwednesday@reddit

As someone dealing with a technical boss... and having had technical bosses in the past... im completely over it. Idgaf that you used to do this thing a decade ago. Things have changed and they often only know enough to make your life miserable or steer you in the wrong direction. The problem is a lot of these dudes just cant let go of the tech side of things and never should have become managers at all. If I ever get into management I might keep up on the tech stuff, but always defer to the admins.

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0157h7@reddit

You already nailed it. The answer is going to depend and that dependence is based on organizational need and or team need.

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Atillion@reddit

They should be SMEs on the direction of the business as well as the SME on what their team is the SME of. In my experience, they should be the interface between the executives that make decisions and the team that can make it happen.

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slowclicker@reddit

Best boss I had could guide. Most annoying boss I had was in the weeds, played favorites, and other things due to his lack of corporate experience. When a boss isn't enabling his team to do the job (by doing it him/herself). He is stiffling their growth.

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TerrificVixen5693@reddit

No. We’re supposed to be the SMEs that he can call on.

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cyberkine@reddit

A good boss should be able to function at an average level of competency for any direct report. They don't need to be the SME, but they do need to understand the job.

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Unexpected_Cranberry@reddit

I would have to disagree. The best bosses I've had could barely connect to the office printer, never mind fill in for any off us at any capacity. One of my favorites didn't even have an admin account. But he was phenomenal at office politics, dealing with other department heads, making sure we weren't overloaded, that we were compensated and appreciated when we did good things for the company that most people wouldn't notice, making sure we were doing alright and could do our jobs. It also forced me to learn how to convey what I was working on into non - technical terms, concisely explaining what we were improving or fixing and why. We'd feed him facts, pros cons, risks and benefits that he in turn could use to motivate additional spending. This was at a smallish company, about 150 employees across two offices supporting about 150 retail locations.

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simAlity@reddit

This.

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Top-Perspective-4069@reddit

I wish I could get away from having to be the SME for our entire environment.

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raptorboy@reddit

Been the boss and no I don’t need to know how to do your job but I do need to know enough to guide you on big picture

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fd6944x@reddit

Thats how our boss is. He used to be in the weeds so he can speak the same language as us and has enough knowledge to make an informed decision (with out input) and then leans on the for the implementation

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largos7289@reddit

Well the good part of me getting my job was that i did in fact do the job(s) my guys do. So in a way yea i'm the subject matter expert per say. I mean sometimes i gotta go ask other dept guys or bubble it up. However as i stay here in Mgmt i find I'm less and less IT knowledgeable on the new stuff. I'm sure i'll reach a point where i'll be that IT manager, but not today sir, not today.

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Kardinal@reddit

I always say that the boss needs to know enough to know when they're being lied to. So generally I agree with the consensus here. Managers are there to provide management, vision, get resources, and set priorities. They do not need to be technology experts to do that.

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HerfDog58@reddit

I used to think anybody managing me and evaluating my job performance needed to be able to do my job as well as, or better than, I could. I've evolved so that I expect the manager/evaluator to keep understand what I need to do my job and provide it to me, while keeping people from preventing me from successfully completing my work.

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cwestwater@reddit

My manager has zero credentials to log into any system. He's there to people manage not do technical work

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DopamineSavant@reddit

Maybe not an SME, but I have no respect for completely none technical people that manage technical teams.

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headcrap@reddit

ngl, my boss isn't SME per se.. but definitely tries to wield his sysadmin skills when the organization starts asking things about stuff. He hasn't done this job for fifteen years.. things have indeed changed a bit, boss... Example: He's pretty much shit for Azure in general. That's fine.. we can talk it through et al.. I would prefer he leave the admin to the staff.. and make me architect ffs so the designing and planning can be handled by someone on point versus duking it out each and every time with the SA team.. what a waste of time.

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mkosmo@reddit

Large org here. No. They should expect you to be the SME and rely on you. It's their job to manage, yours to sysadmin.

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SpaceGuy1968@reddit

This is and has always been what I expected and experienced in my 25+ years doing this

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Level_Working9664@reddit

Only if they try to tell you how to do your job without causing more work down the line

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TheBjjAmish@reddit

Nope I have just expected them to set the vision, handle the escalations, and know the right people to pull in for something. I don't expect them to be a SME by any means but tech skills help of course but they quickly vanish when you live in only manager world.

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Mrhiddenlotus@reddit

It's better for everyone if they are

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MacrossX@reddit

No, but they have to at least have realistic bottoms of how long things take to do and how wildly that figure can vary. They need to always have your back, and they need to respect your recommendations.

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Udo70@reddit

Was a Frontline manager for 16 years. There was nothing I could teach any of my techs about their job. Mine was to empower them, set direction and remove roadblocks. I would explain technical concepts to senior managers in laymen's terms. If there was an incident I would run comms with senior managers to keep them away from the ones fixing the problem.

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Suaveman01@reddit

No, but I do expect them to be technical to the point that they actually know what I’m talking about. Unfortunately, I’ve found working at larger organisations that isn’t always the case.

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1stPeter3-15@reddit

Depends on context to a great extent, but generally I would say no, not for sysadmin stuff. That's what the sysadmins are there for. A manager should have a good nose for bs though, requiring enough experience to smell it. A manager is ensuring the sysadmins have the tools and environmental conditions they need to succeed. To ensure priorities are aligned with organizational goals. To hold the team and it's members accountable for performance.

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TrilliumHill@reddit

Yes, but not in the way you're thinking. I am what I think you're calling a frontline manager. I oversee 2 people and report to a director. I have been a SME in the past at a large org, there's a lot of project planning, design work, documentation at that level, along with being a resource to escalate issues to. As a manager, I still do a lot of that same work, but I'm not the final escalation point. I rely on individuals to do that. I don't need to be the SME in cloud, storage, networking, etc. I need to act as the companies SME for how it all works together, including the human aspect of things. I give my guys the chance to explain how they resolved a problem, but I don't expect them to explain in so much detail that they are training me. It's a chance for them to highlight their skills, and it helps me understand their approach to problem solving and estimating the effort to solve similar problems in the future. In short, I am the SME on my team. That not only involves the technical aspects, but the personality of everyone as well. I know when a request is going to trigger someone, and try to head that off. I know enough about the underlying systems to get the right person involved in an issue. I know when someone needs a break before they are at the point of asking. The difference is my subject is broad, not focused, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try to be an expert in how it runs the most efficiently.

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blanczak@reddit

SME = no, but they should at least be moderately aware to what the subordinate roles entail.

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progenyofeniac@reddit

I’ve worked with great bosses of both types and both have their advantages and disadvantages. Having a boss who’s NOT the SME often means you aren’t micromanaged on how you carry out your work. He’s likely better prepared to smooth relations with other departments, handling personnel issues. But if you’re looking for technical guidance, he won’t be your person. In the second, a boss who’s an SME understands your frustration, can help you keep on top of changes, and can suggest improvements and fixes. But I often see micromanaging from these bosses. I prefer a boss who’s familiar with the tech while not an SME.

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vermyx@reddit

Managers are SME's on management. The most you should expect is SME on process. You cannot guarantee that they were promoted within the org so you don't know whether they have the historical knowledge to be considered SME's. Expect the leads at highest to be SME's

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Nydus87@reddit

I don't expect them to be unless they act like it. If I'm the expert on the team for a specific technology and my boss says "nah, doesn't work like that," I'm going to yield to them on anything going forward until they flounder and pass the ball back. Good managers should know to trust in their people and be an expert at deligation.

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Turbulent-Falcon-918@reddit

I expect a manager to really just keep the wheels on the court, great of they are a subject matter expert : but i need them to largely know policy , procedure , and keep my personal , pay etc on track. Ideally you have subject manager experts and managers separate and the manager knows who to call and when Generally i feel it is my job in my assignment to be a subject matter expert and my manager job to free me up to be that . Personal perspective though. I am always enthusiastic about a manager with long term experience tech side though

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jadedarchitect@reddit

Managers manage, engineers grunt and fix stuff. Keep it simple, you don't want the one scheduling, dealing with the political BS, etc - also worried about a critical infrastructure change while there's fire everywhere. As an engineer, that is not something I like to see, especially if it's compartmentalized to where the boss is the only one with access, that can turn bad quickly.

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Shot-Document-2904@reddit

What I’ve learned is no one is an expert on everything. You build a team that complements each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Lean on each other. A good people manager will build that team. A good tech lead, while not an expert on every 1 and 0, should have a blend of people, project, and tech skills. A good tech lead knows when to bring in another team member to help or recognize when you need help. The team should be strong together.

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chompy_jr@reddit

I agree with most folks here. The manager/director doesn't need to be a SME. I have been in roles where I was expected to be both director and SME and the best day of my career was when I hired a badass SysAdmin. On day one he walked into my office and informed me that his job was to get me off of the front lines and in a position where I could be the best director possible. I'd never had someone come in to a job with an approach like this and I haven't seen it since. I miss that dude.

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Delusionalatbest@reddit

There's a difference in being the SME within a company vs an objective SME within the industry. Eg your manager represents IT amongst the leadership or management team. By default they are the IT expert in that group. A manager may have anywhere significant hands on technical expertise or some experience from the past. It really depends on the org and nature of the role. Typically they need to know enough to make informed decisions and recommendations. How it impacts the IT team, other departments and overall org. What's most important is that the manager needs to be able to be effective. This means managing up the chain, across their level or peers and down the chain to their team. How they would do this is by communicating complexity in simple terms to non technical stakeholders. Then the reverse for simplified business asks which then need to be related technically for the IT team.

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andycwb1@reddit

I expect my manager to worry about things like budgets and team dynamics, and to leave me alone to worry about the technology.

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Normal_Choice9322@reddit

Mfw we restructured and I am doing both 🙃

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Turbulent-Pea-8826@reddit

No. But they shouldn’t act like a technical expert if they are not. Know what you know and what you don’t know and learn to take advice from the technical experts.

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Enough_Pattern8875@reddit

I don’t expect *any* manager to be a SME. It’s always helpful when managers have a tech background, but it’s never been an expectation of mine. You can still be an excellent manager of people with even a general/high level of understanding of the technologies your engineers manage.

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thewunderbar@reddit

No. A manager shoudln't need to be a SME. My IT director was a sysadmin 15 years ago, but if I needed him to set up a SAN or Hyper-V cluster today he probably wouldn't be able to, or at least not well, and it would take him 4x as long. And that's not a bad thing. He's a manager/director level. It's not his job to use the tools everyday anymore. His job is to be a manager, and set the direction for the people doing the work.

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Humble-Plankton2217@reddit

About everything? No. About at least one thing? Yes, absolutely.

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DesignerGoose5903@reddit

They need to understand the product, just like anyone else working with it, but not at a detail level. If a manager does not know what for example a reverse-proxy is, that is an issue as it will cause a breakdown in communication between management/product owners and technical staff as to what actually needs to be done. They do however not need the technical expertise to configure said reverse-proxy.

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rocky97@reddit

No, but I don’t want them inputting their irrelevant sme content from bpos/eop 2012 days

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Rotten_Red@reddit

No, but they should know the concepts.

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stick-down@reddit

In a 2 person IT team yes they should be able to do my job. I was told by upper management they would be able to help me with the work load and were a network expert. None of that was true. Yes they have general working knowledge of the subject but don't do it.

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AppIdentityGuy@reddit

They should at least understand the basics. How do you explain what the problem is when your manager is beating you over the head doesn't knoe the difference between an OU, a container or DN.... Another exampkr. Know Manager should be managing an Azure team without at least AZ-900. Take the commander of a USMC rifle company. He has to met the same basic accuracy standards etc as his troops have on the major weapon systems they use.....

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ExoticAsparagus333@reddit

The only place ive ever been where the boss was the SME waw a consulting shop I worked at when I was totally green in college. Even managers with technical backgrounds spend too much time… being managers to keep up with all the specific intracies of the environment.

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Valdaraak@reddit

Managers shouldn't be SME in anything. They should be managing the people who are.

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keirgrey@reddit

I expect them to have some sort of idea what I do. Not, necessarily, be able to do it but just understand the general concepts.

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cjcox4@reddit

No. Definitely no. Managers deal with people and budgets. I'm not saying that good technical people can't "switch ladders", but creating micro managers is just not a good idea. Managers should delegate to "their experts" and use that in their decision making. A manager that "is the expert" manages none.

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OwnConversation1010@reddit

No, but my manager wants to be, so I have to explain everything I'm doing like I'm talking to a 5 year old. And he still won't understand.

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gucknbuck@reddit

No, they should be good at managing the team and understanding who is in what role and how to direct questions/tickets/concerns among us. Our current manager just so happened to be the old architect so he is a SME in a lot of areas, but not all, or even most anymore.

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Phatkez@reddit

Expert? No. But they need to know enough and pay attention to the detail of repeat work so that they can identify and tackle mistakes or direct work to the right people for that particular job. Technical Managers that have done sysadmin work themselves before are obviously much better than some random corporate weirdo who doesn't understand the context of what they're managing.

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JustAnEngineer2025@reddit

The manager should be able to lead his/her team with some level of technical skill. It would be a messy situation if the manager had stronger technical skills across the board than the team that he/she manages.

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