[m23khan]

I don't know solution for the entire IT industry but can suggest something for Corporate IT:

New IT staff should be given grounding in Business Curriculum relevant to the Corporate's business / Team's mandate - this ought to organized by upper level of IT management.

Software Developers / Engineers working in Corporate IT tend to stagnate in terms of their careers once they hit the wall (wall = business knowledge).

E.g., take an investment firm and within it, say IT Department XYZ Supports the firm's Private Equity investment team. It is easy for Software Engineers in the team to code up and provide Tech. solutions however for complex business cases where advanced Private Equity knowledge is required, the Software Engineers have to rely on the Business Analysts or the clients themselves to do hand-holding.

I have only seen something like 1 in 10 Software Developers in Corporate IT willing to pick up Business knowledge beyond the basic business terminology. And this is why I believe the value of Software Engineers at Corporate IT takes a serious hit - from CEO / Board / Upper layers of Finance, it looks like the drivers of revenue are basically their finance folks (CFAs, CPAs, Investors) whereas IT are just a cost center to enable the finance folks to do their work (which is a very bad vision but that is how it looks like from their POV). In these cases, the only group from IT that benefits somewhat are the top IT management who act as the guardians of the IT division.

Another thing that works against IT folks in Corporate IT is self-criticism (critical of current IT culture, constant itch to reinvent self), constant need to associate with low-paid/ low-educated professions (factory line worker analogy, plumber mentality) and appearing far too casual. Sure, jeans and T-shirts and having eccentric/artistic personality is the culture spawned from Tech stalwarts based in Silicon Valley, but that mentality does not translate into rest of the World. Even if the Corporate's HR policies allows for dress-down environment, guess what - the HR and Finance People typically appear well polished in their appearance - they rather have nice office lunch rather than pizza and pop chow-downs and you can't deny that as humans (especially if the CEO and top Execs are non-IT), it doesn't leave a very favorable opinion about the IT staff.

[dpeck]

It’s not just software, it’s like that for every industry. There are some, usually large, group of people whether in sales/marketing/operations/etc who aren’t particularly interested in the industry of their business but prefer to focus on the details of their task.

It’s not wrong or bad at all, but it does tend to be compensated less.

[jimbokun]

I agree that lack of business domain knowledge becomes a limiting factor in career growth for IT people at a certain point in non-software companies.

But I think that is an argument for working for a software company as the optimal career path for a software engineer (or founding one). It will help you to know more about finance as an IT guy working at a finance firm, but you will probably never be as valued as the traders.