Katie Bauer!

This happens to engineers too, but it's not as common. Not everyone sees a DS's time as precious. It's not that they don't appreciate it it, but rather that it's a value-add. If DS work doesn't pan out, oh well! We didn't REALLY need it.

And for Type A DS managers, this makes measuring the contributions and progress of your team extremely difficult. The value your team adds is often realized by influencing someone else to act. It's latent, a second order effect. It takes time to see.

A consequence of this is that Type A DS work (and management) tends to be more relationship-based. This is a good path forward, since folks are more likely to trust someone they have a good relationship with, but it also means that Type A DS work is less modular.

Because DS is not essential on its own, the title of DS doesn't automatically convey authority. Customers often trust the individual to advise them, not the office, and this makes rotating people between projects on Type A DS teams difficult to do productively.

Siloing is a big problem for Type A DS, where one person has gone deep on an area and no one else can fill in. As a DS manager, who's supposed to keep the plates spinning regardless of staffing, this makes it stressful when your team is sick, on vacation, etc.

It also makes it harder for DSes to collaborate. A team of two horses can pull more weight together than two horses working alone. Engineering teams, which are inherently more modular, function like teams of horses, and Type A DS teams function like individual horses.

As a type A DS manager, it makes you wonder if you're really managing a team in the same way that an engineering manager is managing a team. There's less of a shared identity. It's hard to say what you're doing as a TEAM, rather than as individuals.

Now, this all might sound like a lament, but I'm not necessarily saying that it's a bad thing. Type A DS teams are viewed as important (maybe even essential) partners much of the time, and an embedded, verticalized team structure usually generates good outcomes for a company.