> sorry, but this just sounds like a rationalisation for "we built the wrong thing".
If it were so easy to decide what the right thing is to build before you build it then business would be easy.
That's the whole reason options have value. Having 3 shippable products ready to go when you can only effectively ship 1 puts the whole team in a much better position than choosing 1, focusing everyone on it, and hoping you hit the lottery with product-market fit.
So yes, an engineer may work on something that doesn't ship. That doesn't retroactively make their effort worthless, and that's not even counting the experience gained by the endeavor which may well pay off on the next round of products to ship.
If it were so easy to decide what the right thing is to build before you build it then business would be easy.
That's the whole reason options have value. Having 3 shippable products ready to go when you can only effectively ship 1 puts the whole team in a much better position than choosing 1, focusing everyone on it, and hoping you hit the lottery with product-market fit.
So yes, an engineer may work on something that doesn't ship. That doesn't retroactively make their effort worthless, and that's not even counting the experience gained by the endeavor which may well pay off on the next round of products to ship.