You think your language/compiler is finicky? Managers deal with with self-aware complex-state compilers called programmers, and the good managers even get them to produce software.

Seriously, I like the widget factory vs film school answer, which I think is probably the best answer in thread, but there's a meta-level discussion it doesn't really address: no matter which kind of organization you're building, you're building an organization from material as capricious as people, and that's work that's often hard to do well. You can make a solid argument that it's weird that these positions often pay better than the programmer's when a significant chunk of analysts and PMs and PHBs are not in fact doing a good job, but the fact is that there is a job out there that involves building organizations that get things done, and it's a skillset that's arguably more difficult to master than building software systems that get things done.

You think your language/compiler is finicky? Managers deal with self-aware complex-state compilers called programmers, and the good managers even get them to produce software.

Seriously, I like the widget factory vs film school answer, which I think is probably the best answer in thread, but there's a meta-level discussion it doesn't really address: no matter which kind of organization you're building, you're building an organization from material as capricious as people, and that's work that's often hard to do well. You can make a solid argument that it's weird that these positions often pay better than the programmer's when a significant chunk of analysts and PMs and PHBs are not in fact doing a good job, but the fact is that there is a job out there that involves building organizations that get things done, and it's a skillset that's arguably more difficult to master than building software systems that get things done.