[mmt]

I agree, and I see this same effect of dismissing an entire specialty based primarily on experience as "easy" even within tech, such as what some programmers (Devs) think of sysadmins (Ops). I also agree that us-vs-them is harmful, and, in the context of my example, it's what DevOps (the original cultural movement, not the current job title) was primarily fighting against.

However, I do think there's some validity to the complaint, hidden in nuance, and dismissing it outright with even the implication that everyone has equal(ish) value, serves to foster hidden resentment.

The allegation seems to be that any accomplished programmer could become accomplished in sales, merely with effort, because the skill/difficulty required by the latter is much less than the former, while the reverse isn't true.

Even if that allegation holds, a question that remains generally undiscussed is, would that programmer-turned-salesperson still be a competent programmer at the end of such a process? Perhaps more importantly, would such a person be a more valuable as salesperson than as a programmer? The question of if such a salesperson is more valuable than a salesperson-from-the-getgo seems to be implicitly answered "yes" in these discussions, but that kind of diversity of experience bringing additional value tends to be uncontroversial.