Your place in the workplace

 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technology/tech-jobs-silicon-valley-changes.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bk8.XzMY.gAA5tNdj08Rl&smid=url-share

I read this story and I think about growing up.  My father was an accountant, taxes and customs manager, for a chemical company and a bolt company for most of his career.  Those were both companies were engineering was important.  You needed chemical engineers and metallurgists at both companies.  I spent my young working life around these companies.  At both these companies, like many companies around Philadelphia engineering was important, but they were not the rockstars of the companies. The executives were the rockstars of the companies.  The people who sold the product and made the deals where the ones that had the real weight.  The factory general managers were the people who had the fate of the company in their hands.  They were the ones that were seen that made or broke things.  The R&D guys in the labs were 

It was strange to me when I got Silicon Valley the way engineers were treated just blew my mind.  They were more than just the nerds in the lab.  They were the straw that stirred the drink.  When I got to Silicon Valley the CTO was usually this more important person in the company.  They set the tone that everyone else followed.  The engineering organization is what everyone wanted to control.  That was the key to making the product.  

This story makes me think of that.  The people who came to work in Silicon Valley right out of college, who are any younger than 50 never saw the world I'm talking about.  I wonder if developers and engineers will be okay not being the rock stars of their companies.  Or will these engineers being just part of the machine. 

 

It is more than just the money. It is how engineers are seen at the engine of the company. It is about how they are why the company will make it or not.  The engineers are the people who really decide what the product will in many ways.  

A long time ago I was told the Formula 1 analogy. If you have a car off the lot anyone can up the horse power by 25% with a little money. If you have an F1 car every extra horse power cost you a million dollars. That is the difference between sufficient code and great code. Most the coders I know believe this, Even the ones who are delusional about how good their code is. It was also seen that those extra few horsepower are why a company becomes Google and not Yahoo.