Ask HN: Why do managers get paid more than individual contributors?
They often don&#x27;t.<p>But when they do, it&#x27;s because of leveraged impact. If I&#x27;m a 10x engineer, then that&#x27;s a huge individual contribution. However, if I&#x27;m a 2x manager with 12 reports, then my impact is greater than a 10x engineer. That is to say, if I can make my 12 reports twice as productive, then that&#x27;s a huge benefit to the org. If I&#x27;m a 2x director with 4 managers reporting to me, then that 2x compounds through each level of the org.<p>Now, a 2x manager might seem far fetched, but so is a 10x engineer if we&#x27;re being honest. Think about your productivity under your best boss vs your worst boss.<p>What is a bit of nonsense is bad managers. But that&#x27;s a whole different issue, with tomes of academic research (see The Peter Principle) trying to figure out why incompetence is so pervasive in management.