the mythical player-coach in software startups

Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports … Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams.

this hn thread triggered something and here i’ll try to talk about it.

the player-coach in sports is an individual who acts as both a primary playing member and also coaches the team.

however no sports, at the highest level, have a player-coach – as all positions are specialized and win / loss margin are usually in single digits, which does not afford for a person to do multiple things and excel at each of them.

at the level of startups which advertise player-coach like roles, i believe they do not have clarity about what their highest member in engineering team should look like, and even they might not be clear about how to structure their engineering teams.

a player-coach like structure will produce a mediocre manager or mediocre engineer, the team and the product suffers in the long run. moreover for the individual its detrimental in the long run - as they will not abe able to hone their craft due to the dual responsibility of the role.

David Senra in podcast #18 brings up Extreme Ownership, and decentralized command – where individuals are capable of taking over from fallen compatriots. clarity of role and purpose will always beat these dual responsibility like role.

in the long run the startups are losing because of this instead they should be aiming to ground themselves in a vision for your team and product.