Comment by AdieuToLogic
8 hours ago
This is the recommendation I have heard peers, both technical and managerial, echo for years in one form or another:
4. Upskill professionally. We're not hiring code monkeys
for $200K-400K TC. We want Engineers who can communicate
business problems into technical requirements. This means
also understanding the industry your company is in, how to
manage up to leadership, and what are the revenue drivers
and cost centers of your employer. Learn how to make a
business case for technical issues. If you cannot
communicate why refactoring your codebase from Python to
Golang would positively impact topline metrics, no one will
prioritize it.
The above involves one thing people can possess which GenAI cannot; understanding stakeholder problems which need to be solved and then doing so.
You seem to have forgotten politics, since at the managerial level that is the most effective tool at hand. Engineers with their arguments and rethoric be damned.
Engineers can make an argument if you can also logically and coherently tie your argument with outcomes that can grow pipeline and/or revenue.
Most customers that matter to a business don't churn due to subpar user experience - discounting, roadmap, and dedicating a subset of engineering staff to handle bugs originating from a handful of the most important accounts is enough to prevent churn.
That said, this advice only really holds in the US (and that too in the major tech hubs). If you work in Western Europe you're shit out of luck as a SWE - management culture there just doesn't give a shit about software, because for most Western European businesses software is a cost center, not a revenue generator.