I recently ranted on Mastodon (as one usually does) about a persistent phenomenon, one which I’m quite tired of seeing in this dear software industry I happen to make a living with.
Check these phrases, and don’t tell me you haven’t heard them before:
“I’m an engineer, I don’t want to talk to customers”
“I’m an engineer, I don’t write documentation”
“I’m an engineer, meetings kill my flow”
“I’m an engineer, who cares what the business says, they’re idiots anyway”
“I’m an engineer, I don’t do requirements, that’s not agile”
“I’m an engineer, you’re an idiot for using such programming language, what a moron”
“I’m an engineer, I just spent a whole sprint rewriting this component in [SOME_LANG] without telling anyone, tests are failing tho”
And this is without mentioning the staggering number of times per day when those same “engineers” deflect fault to someone else in the organization.
I’m exhausted, you know. And for good reason: with such attitudes, one should not be surprised that businesses drop the towel, finally considering engineers exactly how they want to be considered (that is, as soulless ChatGPTs in human form roaming earth with the sole purpose of writing code). This has the global effect of engineers complaining that their wages stagnate, or that they are fired en masse, or finally replaced by a 20 USD/month (actual) ChatGPT.
Software engineers (not all of them of course, no need to tell me that) have been slowly digging their own professional graves, spitting on their fellow workers, delivering shitty code, and hoarding information for their own benefit.
(Also, no need to send me angry emails telling me that “the engineers I know aren’t like this” or stupid arguments like that. Good for you, you’ve been really lucky, believe me.)
If there is one group of proletarian workers absolutely and happily oblivious to the fate of their own kind, that is, precisely, software engineers.
My point is, that when communication breaks, any communication, both parts are guilty. I don’t see an end to the impossible dialog anytime soon.