The reality of working in tech: We're not hired to write code (2023)

In most companies, writing code is the last thing developers (should) do. You're there to achieve business objectives, and you were hired because someone thought your experience and skillset will be necessary to achieve those business objectives. Sometimes those objectives are met with an excel sheet, sometimes they're met by losely integrating various 3rd parties, sometimes they're met by integrating various libraries, and sometimes it requires treading new ground and writing some real code.

The best web dev isn't the one that knows .Net, React, Svelte, GraphQL, micro-frontends, etc. The best web dev is the one that can convince their manager that their business objectives can be achieved by using WordPress.

>The best chemical engineer isn't the one that knows the pressure at which chlorine tanks fail, they are the one that knows chlorine gas can be stored in a garage in coke bottles.

I look forward to the day that software 'engineers' are held accountable to the same degree that all other engineers are.

I've written software for industrial machinery that can kill people if it went wrong. It's amazing how much your views on software change when you realize that your accountability starts at manslaughter and goes up from there.

A human life is valued at around $10m in the developed world, incidentally my first real job was fixing an excel spreadsheet that caused $10m in trade losses after the API it called for exchange rates went stale.

I'm not saying that we arrest everyone who writes a spreadsheet to help them with their job. But _someone_ should have their head on the line when it becomes a business process without oversight that can cause millions in losses, damages or bills.

I look forward to the day when "good code" becomes as obvious as the best practices in some other engineering disciplines.

I like the Practical Engineering YT channel and one thing I always find interesting is learning about all the research and guidance that exists for things I never thought of. Like there are 400 page documents on how to implement drainage in dams based on decades of experience and post-mortem investigations when things went wrong.

But it feels like every time I'm involved in a software project, we're starting almost from scratch and just incrementing towards an unknown future which is "good enough". Even if you have a team of experienced developers then the Best Practices at the start of the project are not what they were 2 years prior. The tools that they used on their past projects have evolved (or been deprecated). Or maybe they're being asked to do a bunch of data engineering where they previously did full stack Web development, because org structures are fluid and many IT leaders feel that good engineers can solve any problem with code (ignoring the idea of specialisation).

This is not to disagree with your point, but more to say that a lot of the infrastructure and professional norms around classical engineering disciplines just aren't there (yet) for developers.