This does sound interesting, but it's harder to do this with a junior heavy team. While there are certainly juniors who can get things done with minimal direction, there are also those that do need to be taught how to communicate and collaborate effectively, and especially how to work on things that matter.<p>In that case, it's hard to move to a manager of one, as some people have to support more than a single mentee. And they end up being consumed by their "managerial" work, i.e. being a manager instead of an IC.<p>But, this does open the question: can you build a team structure from the ground up, even a large one, where you've got managers of one only, but have a reasonable seniority structure (eg. a software engineer with 2 yoe could manage someone with 6 months or less).