|
|
|
|
|
|
by crmd
640 days ago
|
|
|
Having a sales meeting with the CIO, CTO, VP Procurement, etc. of a Fortune 500 company is unlike any conversation a non-customer facing engineer would have ever had in their life. Dealing with these people is like golden gloves boxing. Every other move they make is a head fake or a trap. Before you open your mouth and take one step forward, you better have your back foot planted or else they're going to knock you on your butt simply to gain an iota of competitive advantage in the negotiation. One regrettable word or phrase in a sales meeting, even if it is technically and factually correct, can cost your team hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't understand why the author seemingly takes offense that sending an untrained person into a high-stakes scenario isn't something most companies do, or that some neurodivergent people might ethically struggle with personally misdirecting or suppressing technically and factually correct information as part of a business negotiation. |
|
|
They wouldn't send a fresh MBA to those meetings either. There are plenty of low stakes meetings that they can join to get practice. The article seems more concerned about the practice of "hiding" engineers behind 2-3 layers.
I have a theory that the reason why we see so much resume-driven development is that engineers are only given a small slice of the business that they have control of. Of course they will fill it with over engineered solutions and the latest trends. That's the small world that they live in.
I think developers with close contact with customers and business tends to create more pragmatic solutions, because they have much more room to maneuver and can be motivated by seeing the impact and not necessarily trying to find the next piece of hot tech