Sizing engineering teams.
Managers should support 6-8 engineers. Tech Lead Managers (TLMs). Managers supporting less than four engineers tend to function as TLMs, taking on a share of design and implementation work. For some folks this role can uniquely leverage their strengths, but it's a role with limited career opportunities. To progress as a manager, they'll want more time to focus developing their management skills. Alternatively to progress towards staff engineering roles, they'll find it difficult to spend enough time in the technical details. Most folks find being oncall for components they're unfamiliar with to be disproportionately stressful. An important property of teams is that they abstract the complexities of the individuals that compose them. and avoid creating a two-tiered class system of innovators and maintainers.