[linspace]

We have been brainwashed into believing that engineers when left alone will obsess over technical details without business utility, which is something that can happen sometimes but that in my experience is rarely a problem. Quite frankly I think most SW products fail by being an obvious piece of crap, not because resources have been wasted on hard to monetize technical excellence, but the later are more talked about.

[dunkelheit]

You need someone on your team who figures out what is important for the users and prioritizes accordingly. The arrangement where the person who does this also codes a bit can work (especially when the team is small and the application domain is highly technical), but it doesn't happen automatically after you've banished all "pointy-haired bosses" from the project nor is anyone who is a good engineer automatically good at this thing also.

[bartread]

They're more talked about because a lot of us have worked places where we've invested months or years into developing products that... nobody bought or used. That gets pretty soul destroying too.

If that's not been your experience, lucky you, but I've witnessed and been involved first hand in my share of expensive failures that I don't particularly want to repeat.

[lozenge]

While some engineers can be like that, they can be a useful part of the team if enough others are more business needs driven.