[evujumenuk]

I think what we are really talking about right now is essentially a pair of jobs that, though both called "software engineer", are vastly different in scope.

One of them is a software developer who basically does just that, implement requirements. To enable an engineering department with this type of developer, management needs to already have developed a pretty good view on the business processes that could benefit from automation, or that could become feasible in the first place through software. It is understood that a 5% improvement on the critical path can be more difficult, yet still more worthwhile than a 50% improvement in some less important part of the system. To gain this understanding, management needs to know what is technically possible and perform lots of requirements analysis. After that, well-defined work packets can be handed down to rank and file engineers, and then everyone is on their merry way.

The other kind of software engineer performs most of this support work on their own. Such an engineer has additional responsibilities, but can be useful in many more places because the surrounding support structures don't need to exist. You might not even have to give them specific guidance. However, it means that to use this kind of engineer effectively, you have to expose them to accidentals like time, money and risk, or they will not be able to accurately assess where their talents would be most useful.

Many organizations will actually have both types of engineers. But invariably, the perception of how valuable they are will be heavily skewed in favor of the latter kind of engineer. In the hands of management, they handle like a chef's knife, while the "pure" type of engineer would feel more like a cookie cutter. Even the sharpest, most efficient and most perfect cookie cutter will have a hard time to be perceived as more valuable than a reliable multi-use tool that needs next to no setup for decent results.

The point is, maybe you really hate all that stuff. Nothing stops you from being an awesome cookie cutter. More power to you. I suspect, however, that most of your colleagues would regard that as a career-limiting move.

[proc0]

Yeah that makes sense. There seems to be no escape from assessing the risks and investment, although I think there is some inherent value to doing proper engineering, such that the risk is usually worth it because software automation has accelerating returns, but that is also a hard sell in most cases except highly technical areas.

It's an interesting discussion, thanks for your input!