[soneca]

A recruiter, or an HR person in general, do work that “fortifies the company’s ability to make a profit in future years” as you say, by hiring people that will hopefully work there for years.

Same as a financial analyst implementing new processes and spreadsheets to better control money spending.

One can argue that most white collar worker is investing in future profit. Sales people nurturing long sales cycles, lobbyists, content marketing, SEO.

Why are software developers (and merge lawyers) snowflakes among all those types?

[hollerith]

If a recruiter or HR worker helps a company hire 100 new employees, all 100 are free to quit at the end of the year whereas the artifacts created or improved by a developer will be the property of the company forever.

In other words, maybe it is a bad idea to treat people (employees in this case) like property even in our tax code? (I'm personally OK with software's being treated like property.)

[soneca]

And if they create a hiring process? A interview script?