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Comment by tqi | Hacker News Reader

What if they're right, and at a certain point engineering is a commodity?

It is, but at some point, so is management. So is any human capital past your key positions.

I feel like managers - even good managers - understand that better than most. That isn't to say there isn't variation in humans - choosing the humans right for your team and organization will help advance a lot, but it really helps us to think of organizations as ant colonies. One person can slow it down, but very few can speed it up, and they can only do so much.

It's the network of communication that matters more than the person.

Most labor is a commodity in this system “past your key positions” (overpaid execs).

I often struggle to understand what executives do all day. I work (and have worked in many different orgs) with executives quite a bit, see insight into their process, and often come away underwhelmed instead of more confident in leadership.

There are exceptions - I can think of a couple CTOs I know that are worth their weight in gold - but they are just that - exceptions.

I will say, the smaller the organization, the more having the right executives is important though, but it seems that only lasts while headcount is sub ~200 people or so and executives maintain an active role with all pillars of the organization relevant to their function (e.g., it isn't weird for an IC to talk to the CTO from time to time about how their job is going)

It is, until it isn't. Basically modern tech management is about flying as close to commodified engineering sun as possible without burning up.

I like this. Engineering is not a commodity in general but management “adds value” by ensuring engineers are interchangeable.

A job is a commodity if your manager knows how to do your job right now.

There is a subtlety. Your manager might be able to do your job, with time, but if they haven't spent time understanding the same data you have or the greater context of what you are doing, then they won't be able to come to the same conclusions you do.

Therefore your manager must trust your judgement because they do not have sufficient data to make the judgements you make yourself. This necessary deference is what prevents commoditization. Judgement is also unequal, being informed by experience and quality, further denying commoditization because all engineering decisions are not equal.

The corollary is also clear. If a manager thinks they know better than you and treats you like a commodity, then you are forced into performing a job in a dogmatic rather than analytical or informed way. You may be asked to do things that don't make sense or are even directly counter to the organizations goals because they don't know things you know.

Perhaps that was true 50 years ago, but in an increasingly complex technological world, problems simply cannot be solved without increasingly advanced engineering skills.

The overwhelming majority of software engineers are building garden-variety CRUD apps.

Engineering might be a commodity if you're "building garden-variety CRUD apps"

But a lot of companies aren't - or at least, they don't think they are.

Which is like saying most software is reading, modifying and writing memory. Technically true, but not at the level it tells the story.

If that was really true, the world would need only ONE generic CRUD app. It just needs to operate at scale.

The other departments are arguably more so. Law, sales, finance, marketing.

Have you never worked in an organization that survived off of outside sales and employed really, really good sales teams? Of all the departments listed, engineering included, sales would probably be the last one I would consider a commodity.

If it's b2b SaaS sales is probably more important than engineering. If you're designing flight control software it isn't.

HR, management…

What if?

Are they?

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