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At the risk of offending many HN'ers, I think many (most?) technical people severely underestimate the value of most "non technical" things. Sales, marketing, w

At the risk of offending many HN'ers, I think many (most?) technical people severely underestimate the value of most "non technical" things. Sales, marketing, writing...

whyhow 6y ago
This is true in all fields. Everyone always over estimates their own profession's impact on the big picture.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  Everyone of course estimates that their own field is most important, but IT often estimates that some non-technical fields are completely worthless.
  - goatherders 6y ago
    Agree.
  - darkerside 6y ago
    Not worthless, but trivially easy, to be fair to the misguided folks I've worked with in the past.
  - john4534243 6y ago
    Non-technical fields are essential but the training and replacement is much easier compared to programmers profession. Not because programmers are genious talented people, simply because in order for a programmer to stay relevant to the field it becomes a norm to spend every possible waking hour in learning new software frameworks, updating skills. I feel guilty even when i watch competetive programmers youtube channel for entertainment. It is possible to treat the software job as a 9 to 5 job and dont have to spend time in updating the skills outside of working hours which is what a significant portion of the developers in service based software companies do. But it comes with a cost. You are at the mercy of the current employer and if they go out of business your chance of getting employed as a software developer is very low. The skill acquired in personal time is used to make the current employer profitable. With this context when people from non-tech departments like hr and accounting does not respond and tries power play is what makes the developers so arrogant.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  All humans tend to overestimate the importance of themselves, what they do, and what they see. So it is encouraging that technical people display some human traits :)
growlist 6y ago
Having swung away from the technical somewhat and back again, my opinion is that many techies could make a decent fist of the non-technical side if they were forced into it, whereas the reverse would end in absolute disaster.
- superturkey650 6y ago
  Agreed. Tech has a built-in gatekeeping mechanism due to the steep learning curve most people hit right at the beginning. No one is getting taught the fundamentals in school and it can be very hard to wrap your mind around it at first. Meanwhile, many other skills that are dismissed are ones where we got over the initial hump as children in school and the curve gets steeper much later, once you're trying to become a professional.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Once high schools actually start offering programming classes, and CS departments open their courses to the rest of the college, this gate keeping will evaporate overnight. A lot of 'coder-first' programmers might see themselves at a disadvantage in job prospects in the future, especially compared to a math, stats, engineering, chemistry, physics, biology, history, geography, accounting, business, or any other majors really, who not only know how to code well enough for most jobs, but most importantly, how to apply their knowledge of programming to unique problems in their complex field. A lot of other fields do a great job at training you to be an independent investigator first and foremost, specific knowledge second. This is one of the shortcomings mentioned to me from my friends who graduated with CS degrees: a lack of solid reinforcement on hypothesis driven analytical thinking especially, and too much emphasis on algorithms they never used again once they passed that particular exam. A hiring manager therefore might take the polymath who knows programming over one of the thousands of applications they get every year from dime a dozen computer science graduates with great grades from a big school and some random capstone project on their github.
    - growlist 6y ago
      > A hiring manager therefore might take the polymath who knows programming over one of the thousands of applications they get every year from dime a dozen computer science graduates with great grades from a big school and some random capstone project on their github. Sadly not my experience in the UK - it's all top grades in maths/physics/comp sci, x years experience on x ridiculously long and highly specific list of technical skills.
paulcole 6y ago
Yep. Look at how many comments on HN are something along the lines of, “This looks like marketing BS.” But YC funds JuiceBro for Soup and nobody says “This looks like VC/startup BS.”
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

At the risk of offending many HN'ers, I think many (most?) technical people severely underestimate the value of most "non technical" things. Sales, marketing, writing...

whyhow 6y ago

This is true in all fields. Everyone always over estimates their own profession's impact on the big picture.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago
Everyone of course estimates that their own field is most important, but IT often estimates that some non-technical fields are completely worthless.
- goatherders 6y ago
  Agree.
- darkerside 6y ago
  Not worthless, but trivially easy, to be fair to the misguided folks I've worked with in the past.
- john4534243 6y ago
  Non-technical fields are essential but the training and replacement is much easier compared to programmers profession. Not because programmers are genious talented people, simply because in order for a programmer to stay relevant to the field it becomes a norm to spend every possible waking hour in learning new software frameworks, updating skills. I feel guilty even when i watch competetive programmers youtube channel for entertainment. It is possible to treat the software job as a 9 to 5 job and dont have to spend time in updating the skills outside of working hours which is what a significant portion of the developers in service based software companies do. But it comes with a cost. You are at the mercy of the current employer and if they go out of business your chance of getting employed as a software developer is very low. The skill acquired in personal time is used to make the current employer profitable. With this context when people from non-tech departments like hr and accounting does not respond and tries power play is what makes the developers so arrogant.
BurningFrog 6y ago
All humans tend to overestimate the importance of themselves, what they do, and what they see. So it is encouraging that technical people display some human traits :)

growlist 6y ago

Having swung away from the technical somewhat and back again, my opinion is that many techies could make a decent fist of the non-technical side if they were forced into it, whereas the reverse would end in absolute disaster.

superturkey650 6y ago
Agreed. Tech has a built-in gatekeeping mechanism due to the steep learning curve most people hit right at the beginning. No one is getting taught the fundamentals in school and it can be very hard to wrap your mind around it at first. Meanwhile, many other skills that are dismissed are ones where we got over the initial hump as children in school and the curve gets steeper much later, once you're trying to become a professional.
- asdff 6y ago
  Once high schools actually start offering programming classes, and CS departments open their courses to the rest of the college, this gate keeping will evaporate overnight. A lot of 'coder-first' programmers might see themselves at a disadvantage in job prospects in the future, especially compared to a math, stats, engineering, chemistry, physics, biology, history, geography, accounting, business, or any other majors really, who not only know how to code well enough for most jobs, but most importantly, how to apply their knowledge of programming to unique problems in their complex field. A lot of other fields do a great job at training you to be an independent investigator first and foremost, specific knowledge second. This is one of the shortcomings mentioned to me from my friends who graduated with CS degrees: a lack of solid reinforcement on hypothesis driven analytical thinking especially, and too much emphasis on algorithms they never used again once they passed that particular exam. A hiring manager therefore might take the polymath who knows programming over one of the thousands of applications they get every year from dime a dozen computer science graduates with great grades from a big school and some random capstone project on their github.
  - growlist 6y ago
    > A hiring manager therefore might take the polymath who knows programming over one of the thousands of applications they get every year from dime a dozen computer science graduates with great grades from a big school and some random capstone project on their github. Sadly not my experience in the UK - it's all top grades in maths/physics/comp sci, x years experience on x ridiculously long and highly specific list of technical skills.

paulcole 6y ago

Yep. Look at how many comments on HN are something along the lines of, “This looks like marketing BS.” But YC funds JuiceBro for Soup and nobody says “This looks like VC/startup BS.”

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]