[zeptian]

Being ex-IBM, i can relate.

Basically, the management class despises SDE worker class, and thinks of them as overhead. Recent statements by the aws head about chatGPT replacing SDEs is along the same lines.

SDEs are tools that just do what mgmt tells them. mgmt holds the decision-making and all the cards.

periodically there is a whipping (pipping) in the form of a layoff to keep the troops in fear.

[mattgreenrocks]

I’m curious: what, in your experience, was the root cause of this contempt? Other skilled professions can make decent money as SDEs do. Is it a love/hate thing? Feeling like the tools could easily not need them if they had sufficient gumption and will?

[zeptian]

you touch on a raw nerve that could be the subject of a long post.

in summary, the attitude of management in many large companies is that code is just work that needs to get done, and any engineer who can type on a keyboard can do it equally well (cue in ai-coder). so, the smarts is embedded in defining requirements and managing execution of said-code which resides in management.

The problem with this is many-fold. 1) it encourages a culture of top-down decision making including technical decisions and the person making designs is not the one doing the work 2) as tech evolves, the org is unable to catch up since the decision makers are the elite few.

in short, a manufacturing line mentality where the supervisor holds the cards and workers are tools.