One thing that I learned from going to IC to manager: there is a LOT of activity at the manager …

I had the same experience moving from IC to manager. I didn't realize the amount of work that managers are doing that I didn't see and more importantly that they couldn't tell me about. Retention is definitely one, but there's the flip side of dealing with poor performance. You can't announce to everyone that one of the team is on a PIP or struggling with personal issues. But a poor performer means that I'm doing a _ton_ of work to figure out how to fix the issue (whether that's spending hours every week coaching them, building all the long-term documentation that HR requires before we can fire someone, picking up some of their slack myself in the meantime...) Coordination of people also takes way more time than I realized as an IC. If you meet with your manager once per week, that's an hour out of your week. But your manager is meeting with everyone on the team and a good manager is goi…

> Case in point: trying to retain good people. Word. IMO, one of the most important, yet underrated duties, of a good manager. As a leader, you want people to crawl over broken glass to want to be by your side. If not, you end up like North Korea, where you have to sell why people should stay, sometimes eve being dishonest and intimidating in the process. Seeing the latter happen is always a sad sight.

If you are a very senior IC, managers may consult you in these situations as well. Fishing for interesting projects or possibly even trying to have you talk to the person leaving as well. You generally would have context and an ability to connect with the other IC in a way a manager may not. I've never been in management but have on many occasions been roped into these scenarios.

In my experience the inverse is also true. Dealing with performance and behavioral issues can take a huge amount of time, and it something that is never discussed with parties who are not involved. Well run engineering organizations are like a well running engine. They need to have solid parts but they also need constant attention and fine tuning. The best managers do this well.

I agree about the hidden work, but you describe it in a reactionary manner. A huge amount of management effort goes into being proactive so you don't even need to get to the point in the conversation where they voice wanting to leave. Or when they do, you've seen it coming, have plans in place and they move on with your blessing. * Creating a culture where employees (and managers) feel valued and have autonomy. * Ensuring employees are clear about where they are headed, giving them something to work towards. * Proactively identifying and unblocking issues before they become crises, often across functions. * Identifying areas of frustrations for teams and individuals. That's just a small number of the things you'll be doing, and whilst scope varies massively by company size (though until you get to the large corp environment most of this is still covered up to the VP / CTO level), you'll …

This is very true and I learned this quickly when moving to a management role. As an IC, when someone is out for some life event, it might mean more work for you to pick up the slack. As a manager, everyone on your team's problems become your problems. Cancer/long-term illness, death in the family, miscarriages, etc all weigh heavily on my mind when something happens to one of my direct reports. Not asking for pity, but being a manager has a heavy emotional toll if you have even the slightest bit of empathy that I don't think most ICs appreciate fully.

There's also a huge part of "managing moods" to prevent people from thinking about leaving in the first place. And all of that within the constraints of the department budget and company policies.

I think smaller companies do think this way of retaining good people. Large corporations believe anyone is replaceable. Again I am an IC & don’t see/hear any extra work done for retention. This proves your point though.