My team have always commented and liked that I "shielded" them from the none technical meetings and …

> you are more rare than you think. Truth. I'm that person and didn't appreciate how rare I was until I became an EM and learned that most of my team would actively avoid conversations with the customer. Even though I have no way to quantify it, I'm sure it's benefitted my career.

> I simply have never seen a Dev Team work as the way HN tries to make the role sound "Dev/Eng and the customer is the only thing needed". Would love for this to be the case! I think a lot of HN truly believes that Software Developer is the only important role at their company. Software goes straight from the developer's brain, through his fingertips into the computer, and then on to the online store (run by nobody) for customers to buy. Engineering managers, program managers, product managers, marketers, MBAs, tech writers, QA, lawyers, process people, various admins and liaisons... they all exist to play pointless political games, have distracting meetings, and obstruct the One True Role. Design docs, planning, schedules, e-mails, JIRA, reviews, syncs, exec updates... all are useless parts of a scheme to torture the developer. It should just be "developers developing, and then money co…

I don't know how rare it is. I have always found it harder to write software when I don't know the people who will use it or get to see what they feel about it. It's part of the feedback loop. When I get good feedback it's like winning a prize and when it's bad it lets me see where we should be spending our time rather than were we perhaps thought we should.

100%, majority of the posts here are based in fantasy of how the world should work. They're also highlighting why most Devs cant deal with customers effectively. Customers aren't showing up with a clear spec and handing it off while middle managers butt in and ruin the whole thing. Though I agree, most managers are BSing way too much, but the reality is that most Devs cannot navigate conversations like they think they can, and like you said, nor do they want to. And that is exactly what the managers do.

Every developer would be fine having non-devs inserting themselves between customer and developer to listen to the customer and relay the filtered information. But PMs and designers that actually engage in listening to customers/users are incredibly rare . And PMs and designers that actually manage to relay useful information are even more rare. Yes, I know it's their jobs to do those things, but I'm just saying that most are doing it very badly, or not at all. Product and design have become mere creative outlets for those people, especially in companies that make money.

There's an in-between point that I think is better than either, but it can be more difficult to find the right balance: Direct contact with internal stakeholders (with the manager still somewhat involved to still have a good overall view and help prioritize / push back / act as a general buffer), while shielded from customers. That's the place I've always preferred.