I think whether the comparison is appropriate boils down heavily to what kind of software developer you're talking about. For example in the games industry I t

I think whether the comparison is appropriate boils down heavily to what kind of software developer you're talking about. For example in the games industry I think there's a quite a few smaller companies in particular that work like this. A lot of people being generalists and taking over business functions and social aspects of the job. But I think a lot of engineers de facto do work like assembly line workers. Much of software development is not 'knowledge work'. If you're in a company toiling away at some gigantic Java codebase you're not going to have much in common with someone managing a law firm.