I haven't worked for a big software house, probably for medium to small. I'm mostly worked for insurance and currently multinational companies that they have their IT stacked "somewhere in there", so I cannot have a transparent opinion for a developer to developer manager, just with managers in general. I know one thing though. I prefer the Developer Manager NOT to have been a developer. This will usually end up poking his nose into other people's business and that's where the problems starts.