[WindyLakeReturn]

Is there anything really special happening here? For a non-technical individual, it can be hard to tell when someone technical is providing value and when they are, to use the term in this post chain, being a parasite. A technical person has the same issues with non-technical people. I've seen different non-technical business areas have this issue with other non-technical areas. I've read reports where supposedly entire departments were cut and the result was that they mostly parasites and the business did better after losing them, along with times such a decision killed a company.

I'm not sure there is anything really special with engineers in this situation. It seems like one of many varieties of the same problem with telling who is producing value and who is faking the appearance of producing value.

[sudosysgen]

Ultimately, the people making those decisions need to be technical enough to know. Having those decisions made purely by non-technical people is playing russian roulette. This is something that is in many ways easier in more technical domains because at least it's possible to semi-reliably see through the bullshit.