[nickpeterson]

This line of thinking is wrong though, because software developers are more like writers than plumbers. You can fire the writing staff at a sitcom and hire cheaper writers but good luck, it will probably fail.

[andrei_says_]

The issue is that the bean counters count beans and not creativity.

Can we think of a way to connect and individual’s creativity to money flow?

As an engineer I am most productive when I solve a business need without writing code. How can I associate my contributions with measurable profit?

[bb88]

When you write an api, add "dollars_saved", for the amount of dollars your api is currently saving the company. CFO's love that quantitative shit.

[salawat]

Y'all are looking for quantitative Quality measures. Good luck. If you aren't sitting on top of Spend informed by actual company history, you're hosed, and most places are hush hush af about that.

[nickpeterson]

Code and documentation are debts, Features divided by lines of code is a good metric.

[rocqua]

Dear god.

Once that metric becomes anything close to a target the monstrosities it would bring ae horrific!

[chiefalchemist]

The brain drain starts with the turds starts to smell. Those most able to go will be the first to go. Things decline. More leave and so one.

[bb88]

If your primary output is software then maybe you're right. But in most companies software enables more efficient output usually in the form of products or services. A bank uses software, but it's profit is based upon banking... etc.

It's why most Fortune 500 companies run Java, so they can easily replace one person with another.