I like to think of it as - pioneers build the base enough to prove some part of product, market, or technology so there is later revenue for the engineers to ha

I like to think of it as - pioneers build the base enough to prove some part of product, market, or technology so there is later revenue for the engineers to have a job. I've heard tons of engineers teams whine about technical debt - without realizing that there would be no company to employ them. Pioneers tend to be good at many domains; engineers tend to be great at one or a subset of domains. Specialists refine the toolsets and methodologies, while pioneers main goal is to just help prove business value.