Imho, that's one of the greatest value adds we (software engineers) can bring to the table. The "offloading scope / spec requirements to a PM" trend is a slow

Imho, that's one of the greatest value adds we (software engineers) can bring to the table. The "offloading scope / spec requirements to a PM" trend is a slow motion train wreck. If you, or at least someone else on your team, can't clearly state who's going to be using the code you write, what problem they're using it to solve, and how they're using your code to solve their problem... you need to hire an engineer who can empathize with customers.