3 ms·

You're discounting the people that identified the opportunity, scoped out and defined the project, and then briefed you about what was needed. Sales, Marketing

by dann0 3y ago

You're discounting the people that identified the opportunity, scoped out and defined the project, and then briefed you about what was needed. Sales, Marketing, and GTM are absolutely generating 100x - 1000x their salary if they take sole ownership of a project like you are doing. SWEs are good are solving problems, but other people determine which problems to pay attention to, and how much investment to make in them.

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
In some companies, yes. In other engineering-driven companies it's the other way around. In many organizations, marketing is just asking customers what they want. E.g. ask a farmer from the turn of the century, they'd have said "I want a horse that pulls harder and eats less oats!" They'd never have said "I want a tractor!" It's Engineers that conceive of tractors.
- dann0 3y ago
  Hard disagree. Marketers conceive of tractors. They are the ones by talking to the customers and knowing what they need. They are the ones that know that one engineer has been working on a high power engine, and other on rugged, high traction trailers. Purely engineering firms fail in the long run as they drift away from what buyers want and chase interesting things because they think they know better.
  - bazmattaz 3y ago
    I would’ve agreed with you if you had swapped marketers for product managers. Marketers coming up with ideas and dictating those ideas to engineers is just wrong
  - moomoo11 3y ago
    Cough meta cough
    - selimthegrim 3y ago
      Zilog too
  - birksherty 3y ago
    > Purely engineering firms fail in the long run as they drift away from what buyers want and chase interesting things because they think they know better. Eh, it's not about purely engineering. Many businesses who are not related to engineering fails exact same reason. They only care about short time growth and loses. Happens all the time.
- singleshot_ 3y ago
  Every time I hear this horse argument I picture a horse that is as strong as 1000 horses and goes 300 miles per hour and I get really sad that they invented cars instead of just giving people what they wanted.
  - hnfong 3y ago
    But remember the horse shit you'd need to deal with.
    - singleshot_ 3y ago
      Correction, that YOU would have to deal with. I’ll be three hundred miles away looking for oats. That being said: you are absolutely right. How quickly the externalities are forgotten.
eslaught 3y ago
There's a straightforward (if not necessarily easy) way to test this hypothesis. Go look at founders and see what fraction are engineers vs project managers vs sales/marketing/business/etc. in their previous careers. Then go look at who is successful and how their success is positively or negatively impacted by their experience. I haven't run the numbers but I have the impression that "idea people" tend to flounder without a strong technical co-founder. In contrast, technical co-founders can make it on their own, though there may certainly be challenges in doing so. Those roles are also very different in terms of what you can hire in as early employees vs what absolutely has to be a part of the founding team. Almost everything in a big organization is a team effort, but that doesn't mean you can't tease out the relative contributions of the different parts. And I think you're undervaluing the engineering contribution substantially.
- dann0 3y ago
  That's an interesting point, but I think having a Founder's or Entrepreneurial mindset is the key to success here and not the founder's professional discipline. It's about the combination of ideas, execution, and money. No single profession owns that. Lots of successful businesses have been founded and run by founders with no formal engineering training. They all need some level of business knowledge, but that can to some degree be learnt on the job.
duncan-donuts 3y ago
I think you’re just making a case that those roles are also underpaid. All of these things can be true.
pdntspa 3y ago
That is why I said "across my entire team". The numbers are still ridiculous.
yarg 3y ago
A lot of the time those guys are just making magical promises to customers with no idea how what they want could actually work. Then they throw it to engineering and either take the credit or shift the blame.

by dann0 3y ago

JoeAltmaier 3y ago

In some companies, yes. In other engineering-driven companies it's the other way around. In many organizations, marketing is just asking customers what they want. E.g. ask a farmer from the turn of the century, they'd have said "I want a horse that pulls harder and eats less oats!" They'd never have said "I want a tractor!" It's Engineers that conceive of tractors.

dann0 3y ago
Hard disagree. Marketers conceive of tractors. They are the ones by talking to the customers and knowing what they need. They are the ones that know that one engineer has been working on a high power engine, and other on rugged, high traction trailers. Purely engineering firms fail in the long run as they drift away from what buyers want and chase interesting things because they think they know better.
- bazmattaz 3y ago
  I would’ve agreed with you if you had swapped marketers for product managers. Marketers coming up with ideas and dictating those ideas to engineers is just wrong
- moomoo11 3y ago
  Cough meta cough
  - selimthegrim 3y ago
    Zilog too
- birksherty 3y ago
  > Purely engineering firms fail in the long run as they drift away from what buyers want and chase interesting things because they think they know better. Eh, it's not about purely engineering. Many businesses who are not related to engineering fails exact same reason. They only care about short time growth and loses. Happens all the time.
singleshot_ 3y ago
Every time I hear this horse argument I picture a horse that is as strong as 1000 horses and goes 300 miles per hour and I get really sad that they invented cars instead of just giving people what they wanted.
- hnfong 3y ago
  But remember the horse shit you'd need to deal with.
  - singleshot_ 3y ago
    Correction, that YOU would have to deal with. I’ll be three hundred miles away looking for oats. That being said: you are absolutely right. How quickly the externalities are forgotten.

eslaught 3y ago

There's a straightforward (if not necessarily easy) way to test this hypothesis. Go look at founders and see what fraction are engineers vs project managers vs sales/marketing/business/etc. in their previous careers. Then go look at who is successful and how their success is positively or negatively impacted by their experience. I haven't run the numbers but I have the impression that "idea people" tend to flounder without a strong technical co-founder. In contrast, technical co-founders can make it on their own, though there may certainly be challenges in doing so. Those roles are also very different in terms of what you can hire in as early employees vs what absolutely has to be a part of the founding team. Almost everything in a big organization is a team effort, but that doesn't mean you can't tease out the relative contributions of the different parts. And I think you're undervaluing the engineering contribution substantially.

dann0 3y ago
That's an interesting point, but I think having a Founder's or Entrepreneurial mindset is the key to success here and not the founder's professional discipline. It's about the combination of ideas, execution, and money. No single profession owns that. Lots of successful businesses have been founded and run by founders with no formal engineering training. They all need some level of business knowledge, but that can to some degree be learnt on the job.

duncan-donuts 3y ago

I think you’re just making a case that those roles are also underpaid. All of these things can be true.

pdntspa 3y ago

That is why I said "across my entire team". The numbers are still ridiculous.

yarg 3y ago

A lot of the time those guys are just making magical promises to customers with no idea how what they want could actually work. Then they throw it to engineering and either take the credit or shift the blame.