[bluefirebrand]

I like this distinction between engineer and technician

However, I think if the tech industry adopted this distinction formally, the outcome is that there would be far fewer software engineers and far more software technicians.

Which would probably actually be a good thing overall. Most solutions being built out in the world don't seem to need software engineers imo

[steveBK123]

I've been on numerous projects that would have probably been more successful with fewer "engineers" and more "technicians".

Sometimes people too good get bored and need to invent more complicated versions of the actual problem in order to build fun projects.. All good at your own startup or in your free time of course...

[bluefirebrand]

I'm on a project like this right now. All we needed was an API that exposes data from a database and the team in charge of that database is inventing their own query language with a series of microservices run by an orchestration framework, all to avoid having to make new endpoints when different data is needed. Zero documentation of course. Good job security and resume building all in one project!

Sometimes 10x engineers means 10x more complicated than it needs to be an 10x less intuitive than it should be. :)

[trelane]

Presuming your characterization is correct, this sounds like premature automation.

Like optimization, there is a sweet spot.

[steveBK123]

Yeah we had a guy come in and of course invented his own DSL. He had carte blanche for 3 years, nabbed 90% of dev resources, but migrated 0% of clients...

These things can run illogically longer than you can tolerate an unpleasant work environment / bad comp.