Comment by redisman
5 years ago
The problem with general advice. I would say most engineers take 1-2 years to truly grok the business, internal relationships and the whole of the technology stack you have deployed. So if you’re jumping ship every year or so like I sometimes see recommended you’re not really ever firing on all cylinders. Once you have the big picture and have deployed multiple projects - is when you can start proactively fixing systematic issues that you’ve identified
For engineers, is it ever really worth it to understand the business?
I can see the enormous harm having no technical people who know the domain causes in my current role, but the benefits of learning it seem to be slim to none for the individual engineer. The harm is in low productivity for my employer, but they don't seem to care about retention anyway. Most do not.
A good engineer who understands the business thoroughly is I'd wager 3 times more valuable than just a good engineer who has no knowledge of the business.