4 ms·

I disagree. I believe engineers are generally smarter than accountants.

steve_adams_86 2y ago
But are they well-versed in the things accountants specialize in? Is there a possibility that not every programmer can be a good accountant, or that accountants know things you're unaware of when you wrote that statement?
- chrisco255 2y ago
  Even better, they're well versed in things that accountants aren't. When you're auditing trillions of dollars in spending, it helps to have software, data science and analytics experts that can use modern tools beyond COBOL written 62 years ago. They can use data processing, detect anomalies better, leverage AI models, automate data extraction from analog records, ingest unstructured data like emails and memos, build complex financial dependency graphs, detect leaks, build custom scrapers, etc etc. I'm sure there's at least one accountant in the loop, but you really want the team to consist mostly of data nerds.
  - steve_adams_86 2y ago
    What about GAAP/IFRS? How do you endow these software engineers with knowledge of common patterns of fraud or leaks so they can actually write the correct software to find them automatically? How do they identify material misstatements? You also seem confused; COBOL might be used, but it isn't the only tool available to accountants working for the government. COBOL is a straw-man. What you're describing here—software engineers who presumably have training in accounting—already exists, and they work inside and out of the government. This is an existing career path. You're speaking about this as though you know a better way to do something, but it's already happening, and has been for years. Accountants aren't writing 62 year old programming languages waiting to die in their chairs while the world continues to progress without them. Accounting just about anywhere you find it is already accomplished by accountants, some of them technically trained, as well as data scientists and software engineers. It's an interdisciplinary collaboration in any serious organization.
  - rgavuliak 2y ago
    As a person who works with data and has done both consulting and product building in Data Science and lack of domain knowledge is what makes or breaks the end result. Too often do technical people think they know better and then build mediocre solutions that don't get used.
    - steve_adams_86 2y ago
      If technical people were so good at these things, technical people would have a hell of a lot more successful startups for one thing.
  - mschoch 2y ago
    [dead]
BoredPositron 2y ago
Let me guess you are an engineer?
croes 2y ago
Accounting isn't about being smart.
Philpax 2y ago
https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/
viraptor 2y ago
An audit accountant can ask an engineer to implement whatever is needed to achieve a goal they understand. An engineer with no finance background will have no idea where to start or what questions they can ask an accountant. Or they will have absolutely no idea about the context and for example reveal secret information while they think they're just looking at money https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elon-musk-doge-posts-classified-data_n_67ae646de4b0513a8d767112 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elon-musk-doge-posts-classifi...

But are they well-versed in the things accountants specialize in? Is there a possibility that not every programmer can be a good accountant, or that accountants know things you're unaware of when you wrote that statement?

chrisco255 2y ago
Even better, they're well versed in things that accountants aren't. When you're auditing trillions of dollars in spending, it helps to have software, data science and analytics experts that can use modern tools beyond COBOL written 62 years ago. They can use data processing, detect anomalies better, leverage AI models, automate data extraction from analog records, ingest unstructured data like emails and memos, build complex financial dependency graphs, detect leaks, build custom scrapers, etc etc. I'm sure there's at least one accountant in the loop, but you really want the team to consist mostly of data nerds.
- steve_adams_86 2y ago
  What about GAAP/IFRS? How do you endow these software engineers with knowledge of common patterns of fraud or leaks so they can actually write the correct software to find them automatically? How do they identify material misstatements? You also seem confused; COBOL might be used, but it isn't the only tool available to accountants working for the government. COBOL is a straw-man. What you're describing here—software engineers who presumably have training in accounting—already exists, and they work inside and out of the government. This is an existing career path. You're speaking about this as though you know a better way to do something, but it's already happening, and has been for years. Accountants aren't writing 62 year old programming languages waiting to die in their chairs while the world continues to progress without them. Accounting just about anywhere you find it is already accomplished by accountants, some of them technically trained, as well as data scientists and software engineers. It's an interdisciplinary collaboration in any serious organization.
- rgavuliak 2y ago
  As a person who works with data and has done both consulting and product building in Data Science and lack of domain knowledge is what makes or breaks the end result. Too often do technical people think they know better and then build mediocre solutions that don't get used.
  - steve_adams_86 2y ago
    If technical people were so good at these things, technical people would have a hell of a lot more successful startups for one thing.
- mschoch 2y ago
  [dead]

BoredPositron 2y ago

Let me guess you are an engineer?

croes 2y ago

Accounting isn't about being smart.

Philpax 2y ago

https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/

viraptor 2y ago

An audit accountant can ask an engineer to implement whatever is needed to achieve a goal they understand. An engineer with no finance background will have no idea where to start or what questions they can ask an accountant. Or they will have absolutely no idea about the context and for example reveal secret information while they think they're just looking at money https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elon-musk-doge-posts-classified-data_n_67ae646de4b0513a8d767112 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elon-musk-doge-posts-classifi...