[yobbo]

Yep. A developer with "business impact" might be seen as a liability.

One aspect might be that a developer who engages in "business" effectively stops being "subordinate". Management decisions need to be justified on a different level to maintain legitimacy.

[ryandrake]

This thread is kind of wild and something I've never heard anywhere in tech. Every place I've worked would consider a developer at least 5X more valuable if they actually had business or product sense, and could operate without the need for constant symbiosis with a "product guy". At one BigTech company we've all heard of, our division didn't even have product people. The engineering lead was expected to handle all of the product duties, and they wouldn't hire you if they didn't think you could at least grow into that role.

It's one of the reasons I went back for a business degree and then re-entered tech. No, of course nobody in Silicon Valley cares about the "MBA" title (HN sees it as a negative), but everywhere I've interviewed/worked they've appreciated that we could talk about the economic and business impact of the software, and not just the algorithms and data structures.

[jbreckmckye]

That sounds great, and I would advise you to value it. Most tech companies are not this forward thinking (often to their own detriment)