[dekhn]

Any sufficiently complex engineering job involves a social component unless you can somehow isolate yourself from the rest of the world.

I had many engineering jobs when I was a junior programmer where there was a well defined interface, a well defined job for me to do, and I did it alone and submitted the code without review and it worked.

But, when I started working on teams and on more ambitious projects (some of my own invention), everything changed. Suddenly, I realized that I could achieve more by engineering people through writing design docs, code review, and cat-herding.

Yeha, it's less fun to program humans, but you can get more done.

[splintercell]

You're missing my point. I KNOW how bigger projects are done. My argument is something like this:

Imagine if people kept on saying "Engineering isn't just about building things, it's about design and aesthetics, it's important to know the elements of typography. It's all about that. As a Jr developer you can get away by not caring about design and beauty, but as you go up, it won't fly", then this would annoy most of us because even if it was an absolute requirement to know theory of types and aesthetics in order to do a work as an engineer in a bigger company, that ISN'T fundamentally engineering.

Engineering at its core is about building things, and on it's shoulders other elements (like design, users, engineering management etc) stands. Just like if you are an educator, at it's core, it's about teaching.

> Suddenly, I realized that I could achieve more by engineering people through writing design docs, code review, and cat-herding.

And you'd discover that by learning psychology, you are achieving even more. The problem is, in that case Psychology to HR is the same as Legal to HR, it's expansion of domain.

[neo4sure]

Well said.