Why don't you vote with your feet then and work for a company where your boss a.) knows how to write software and b.) knows how to manage software engineers. If a suitable company doesn't exist, why not start one? (Speaking to bystanders here, I know that your about page shows you're working on something cool.)
When I look at my management chain at Google, it's engineers all the way up. My manager was a consultant for 20 years working on DARPA AI projects. My director wrote much of Google's critical early search infrastructure. My VP invented Google's ranking algorithm. My SVP used to work on chip design at Digital's Western Research Lab. My CEO invented PageRank.
Things don't change unless people make them change. Where you see dysfunctional management, I see clueless lumbering behemoths that are tasty prey for a startup.
"... Why don't you vote with your feet then and work for a company where your boss a.) knows how to write software and b.) knows how to manage software engineers. If a suitable company doesn't exist, why not start one? ..."
To me that's the difference between "developer, technologist, engineer" & "entrepreneur". The former will simply be happy if the conditions are suitable. The later wants to build their own company to create the conditions they want. In effect be their own boss.
But this isn't even true of many groups at Google, where people are managed by young (admittedly generally very smart) hotshot product managers without an engineering background.
I admittedly don't know everything that goes on at Google, but last I heard, a PM would never be people-managing an engineer (although there's a separate "manager" track that sometimes ends up managing engineers), and all PM hiring required a CS degree or engineering background.
There was a period of time (roughly 2004-2007) where Google hired a bunch of managers without engineering backgrounds, but they discontinued that practice a long time ago because they found it doesn't work so hot. I've heard that many of the worst offenders have since attritioned away.
When I look at my management chain at Google, it's engineers all the way up. My manager was a consultant for 20 years working on DARPA AI projects. My director wrote much of Google's critical early search infrastructure. My VP invented Google's ranking algorithm. My SVP used to work on chip design at Digital's Western Research Lab. My CEO invented PageRank.
Things don't change unless people make them change. Where you see dysfunctional management, I see clueless lumbering behemoths that are tasty prey for a startup.