Report: Software engineers increasingly seen as strategic business partners
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At least the circle is swinging back towards the saner side now! The problem is that all shops are scattered all around it on the timeline so it's like a box of chocolates. The rise of Agile saw PMs and walking talking bags of acronyms trying to wedge themselves between developers and business because that's the only way many of them could have ever remotely been perceived to be providing value. I don't know how it is that we can have people driving a bus without input from the technical when most stakeholders and business leaders are decidedly less technical than the people they are paying to build their tech. In my view, everyone should be a "dev"... Not really, just know enough that they could take an entry level job as a coder and do ok. That's unrealistic, but it's more the bar/goal where I think we should be for how much technology drives all of our lives. A modicum of understanding is simply prudent and the world would be better for it. The big problem with this sticking the nerds in a closet and letting the others chuck workload over the fence is that you just don't ever know what you don't know. Trying totally ignore your ignorance will not make mis-steps or missed opportunities arising from lack of knowledge any better. It does go both ways... there are plenty of 'domain' things and such developers do not know. You really really want them to. They're not going to 'get there' if they're not included. It's not that developers need to "drive the business". It's that if you aren't strapping them in and asking them to help navigate, you can't really expect anything but failure or a success that fell far short of its potential. It does take all kinds too though. The real word is collaboration. It's been quietly maligned since the first IBM PC. Rather than have corporo-political power structures eroded/altered, many have the inclination to chuck it under a bus. There's nothing wrong with a dev who doesn't really get the business domain (depending), or an exec/stakeholder who doesn't understand tech. The problems come from having all that with basically no linkage between them aside from someone who has a degree in burndown charts.
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yeah, and cannabis is legal now in many states... I don't buy this for a second. Nonsense fluff article. Want some proof? Try to negotiate stock options or profit sharing for a big project. I dare you. Ask for more direct $$ - not some BS "the division has a profit sharing plan." Strategic? Put your $$ where your mouth is. This is just drivel.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.