The question says it all
Anybody can do business work that’s why
Really? Because when I talk to these engineers, I mostly find them to be inept for any solid communication and inability to understand the big picture at times. Having said that, I have met some smart ones but those are rare. Average engineers aren't carved out to have any good business conversations. But average pay is higher and that's what I'm trying to figure out.
Lol @op I could automate business reports done by an entire team annually, given a week or two
Engineering work is shit that a few people want to do. Garbage(data) in, garbage out. j/k
For the same reason non-engineering companies pay engineers like crap... In a tech companies business is an expense to support the engineers who make the money... In other companies the engineers support the business that make the money... It's just a difference in priorities...
I was an engineer earlier, turned product manager and now in operational technology role. As an engineer I missed the “why” and moved closer to business. Now I know the “why” but fucking wish had the skills to do it too. Engineers are over-compensated due to supply demand gap and the big fuck tard this president Trump is.
I'm ok with any President who gets me over-compensated. Thanks, I hadn't thought of this angle and it sure breaks the tie in my mind.
The one that gets me is engineers in business and ops groups. That's a death spiral of low pay and management with absolutely no scalability goals but enough scalability requirements to need them. "Design what we want to be a small product for half the company to use every day, but do it in two weeks, on your own or with a skeleton team, and maintain it for the rest of eternity please. Oh, and we'll hire cheaper people than for building things we show customers. Because, you know, working to make customer-facing teams function X times as well isn't part of the pRoDuCt. Don't you mention incentives either, we want ops to be objective!" No wonder internal tools suck at so many companies. Good god, how much cash evaporates into thin air because of this???
Because they don't do shit while engineers grind code day in and out.