I have another question: why does a PM make more than a dev? My wife made that jump and her salary went up 50%. She literally just goes to meetings and talks now, yet she makes more than her old job that required real skills. Am I the only person who finds this perverse?
Because at the end of the day its whether your shipping something worthwhile that matters. Not how much you code, nor the brain farts of execs.
Paying for someone who can increase the efficiency of a bunch of other highly paid people is a sound investment. Not that this happens often in reality! A shit show is a shit show even with a paid cat-herder. But it can work very well given the right circumstances.
In most companies, PMs make roughly the same as engineers at the same level, so your wife’s situation likely has other factors. Did she make the jump to another company? If so, that’s why, not the ladder switch.
Also, PM requires real skills too, as you can see from a lot of the comments here. Unfortunately most PMs don’t have those skills, so I don’t blame people who don’t know that.
This is far from universally true. If it's junior dev to PM then it makes sense you are defining the work of large swathes of people. That said, one of my pet peeves is junior PMs because the role requires significant skill, expertise, judgement and maturity. If you're just talking in meetings you're doing it wrong.
a good PM or Manager has much higher value than a good coder. the problem is to be a good PM or Manager in tech you need not only good soft skills but also strong technical background. a lot of people in positions dont have either.
