I, Cringely - Fire Your Boss

I, Cringely - Fire Your Boss: "A tech who directly helps users is more important than a manager who can't manage. This is especially true if that manager is making 2-3 times as much as the tech.... If you are managing an IT shop and can't write the code to render 'hello world' in C, HTML, PHP and pull 'hello world' from a MySQL database using a Perl script, then YOU are in the wrong job."

It's true. I once interviewed a man for a highly technical, hands-on position. His resume indicated over 20 years of experience, but I was crushed to find that he spent most of that time as a manager. The buzzwords he used were the technologies his subordinates excelled at using. He didn't understand SMTP, didn't know Perl when he said he did, and always had to use Google as a crutch to help answer questions — during the phone screen. It was painful.

Cringely asserts that these people should be deposed, and I'm seeing signs that this seachange is happening, but I fear for the hard-up tech shops that are going to see a glitzy resume and make a leap of faith that's going to hurt them. Managers manage. Coders code. Know the difference and never compromise on what you're looking for in a new hire.