Why Engineers Distrust Business People | Hacker News Reader

Why Engineers Distrust Business People

quist.co

24 pointsjakequist17 comments

I once read an article that discussed these tensions in excruciating detail. Below is the general gist of it from memory.

A potential cause of the rift between (software) engineers and business people could do with how each group attempts to optimize for returns in their work.

In an ideal world, a software engineer aspires to write elegant code just once, then deploy their work on as many systems as possible (for installed software), to as many users as possible. The software engineer's dream: 1) write code once 2) profit off it indefinitely 3) scale up profits by running the program on as many computers (or for as many users) as possible.

In a "business person's" ideal world, they would come up with a magical process that prints money that is easy to rinse and repeat. A good example is the fast-food franchise model. The business person's dream: 1) come up with a repeatable money-making process 2) profit off it indefinitely 3) scale up profits by running the process with as many people as possible, in as many places as possible.

Before software became big business, business people and software engineers probably got along just fine. I'm guessing it was because most software engineers (or programmers at the time) played a mostly supporting role to the core business of these big blue chip companies. For example, they might be writing software to help cut costs or improve operations efficiency at a large manufacturing company.

Then software itself became a moneymaking business. Now software engineers were optimizing their work input to maximize profits by exploiting computer cycles. All the while, some of these "business people" in software companies came from the traditional school of thought. So they were optimizing to maximize profits by exploiting human cycles (basically employees, and this included software engineers). If anyone didn't want to be treated like a computer program, it was the software engineers. You can probably see where this is going -- this led to a point of contention, or power struggle, between the engineers and business folks.

P.S. If anyone has a link to the article I was referring to please do share!

Indeed. That's kind of the underlying issue.

Everyone distrust business people, even other business people. It's that they (the stereotype) are so inherently driven by self-gain, so you always have to be wary that they won't use or backstab you.

Engineers on the other hand are usually more concerned with taking advantage of technology than of other people, so they're 'safer'.

"It's that they (the stereotype) are so inherently driven by self-gain, so you always have to be wary that they won't use or backstab you."

Yep, I think it is one of the flaws of "legacy" MBA courses. I bet this is to blame for the high CEO pay problem.

Oddly enough, I usually hear this the other way around - that if you work on a product that makes the company money directly (shrinkwrap software for a software company, HFT shit for a financial firm, etc) that you'll generally be treated (and compensated) better than if you're in a supporting role.

Agreed. To clarify my previous point: when technologists work in supporting roles to businesses, the business-people-first management hierarchy mostly makes sense. After all, the parent business is the end customer.

Where engineers feel most repressed is when they are the ones directly making money for the company, but are being taken advantage of by "business people" who aren't making the company money.

You're right -- the people who work on products that makes the company directly are generally treated (and compensated) better at good companies. Imagine if these same engineers weren't treated well... I doubt they'd have much respect for their business-y colleagues/bosses.

Where engineers feel most repressed is when they are the ones directly making money for the company, but are being taken advantage of by "business people" who aren't making the company money.

(Disclaimer: I am a software engineer)

I think a lot of this attitude comes from lack of awareness of how the "business guys" do - indeed - make money for the company (even when the product is software.) It's easy for us techies to get so enraptured with the pure, raw technology that we miss the "other stuff" that matters; things like the fact that software doesn't jump off the shelf and sell itself to customers, the idea of assembling a "whole product," and how important that is to selling something, the importance of demand creation activities, the extent to which "business" functions like marketing and product management serve as a bridge between the customer and engineering, etc. If more of us engineers would look up and around and pay attention to what the biz guy and gals actually DO, and not just lean on tired old stereotypes, it would help a lot.

And, of course, the converse is true as well. Business folks don't necessarily understand what engineers do, and they also fall into thinking based on stereotypes.

In the end, we probably just need more dialogue between both groups and more shared understanding of the world around us.

The quintessential (business) terms for this are "profit center" and "cost center".

Next realize that the assignment of those terms is -- "standards" aside -- essentially arbitrary. One trick of senior managers "parachuted" in to "fix" things, is to start labeling things left and right as "cost centers". They then proceed with a -- very often, short-term -- plan to starve or kill them. Remember, their pay and bonus are dependent upon the next few quarters and not on long-term prospects.

Resulting advice: When you are in a "cost center", get out.

I always thought that the stereotype arises (at least for the direction engineer -> business guy) from the fact that the engineers perceive themselves as doing (or being able to do) intellectually demanding work and the business people as not doing (and not being able to do) the same. And yet it's the business guys who run the companies and tell the engineers what to do (in a sense). So it boils down to a fairness issue based on the engineers' central value: intelligence and intellect. It's the same kind of perception that makes you feel like the top of the class kids in high school go into engineering and the bottom of the class kids go into economics. Or that the engineers are the ones who work so hard to make a product while the business guys get all the fame by merely talking about it.

I remember my A.I. professor complaining that the economics students would never make it through a CS class, yet they will be the ones who end up with a big car and the beautiful girls.

I think this attitude is over-generalizing (and a bit bitter, too, perhaps). It's easy to be a bad business guy, as it is easy to be a bad engineer. But it's not so simple to be successful, at either profession - just that they're vastly different types of professions. And for every engineer who complains, there's nothing stopping them from going into economics, too.

(P.S.: Sorry for the many parentheses...)

I appreciate and empathize with the perspective presented in this post, but I can't help but feel that an inherently negative stereotype is being created merely through language with the use of "business guys."

If the author means very specifically "graduates of MBA programs who primarily focus on business development, partnerships and sales," that's one thing. But, I suspect, instead, there's an inherent tribalism, an "us vs. them" attitude, that anyone who doesn't write code is grouped into this negative "other."

In a technology startup ecosystem, there are marketers, business development folks, product people, operations specialists, and experts, both technical and non-technical of every stripe. Many of those are as wary of one another or more so depending on their backgrounds and experience as software engineers are portrayed as being to anyone who doesn't share their specific job function.

This doesn't strike me as a productive way to have a conversation about biases/fears between different roles. That said, it's not an easy topic to tackle. Rather than criticizing, I should probably contribute something of my own on the topic, as I've been neglecting my blog horribly.

I think the "us against them" or "makers first" mentality is a big problem if you're trying to build a successful company for the long term. I've seen several tech companies who try to compensate for the distrust between engineering and "business people" (why we've lumped a very diverse number of professional practices into one bucket is a discussion for another time) by making engineering a first class citizen, and business people second class citizens, either explicitly or (more frequently) implicitly.

Here's a blog post I wrote on the subject: http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2010/09/startup-marketing-2nd...

For those who would rather not click - the bottom line is that when you make business a 2nd class citizen, you get 2nd class business results. Startups are hacking on more than just product, they're hacking on business model too and that's where sales/marketing/bd/customer service and operations can bring something to the table. So be on one team, or don't bother.

The "legacy" MBAs from the "shareholder value" age that was taught a lot of horrible stuff certainly don't help.

I think this article works with stereotypes and in my world rockstar engineers understand business as well as rockstar business people understand the engineering world. Engineers who doesn't understand the business maybe good developers, but they lack a skillset that is of big importance in order to succeed in such an important environment as a startup that has pressure on it to produce value in order to start generating value and not run out of money. I think we will see more and more of the big startups hiring people with business and engineering skills. In my world that is the perfect developer.

I can relate to the feelings presented in the post, but they look to me like whining.

I understand the value of expressing feelings in a relationship.

However the author makes us (developers) look like little girls that need taking care of. I have never been in a startup (just in similar circumstances), but I doubt this is productive in such an environment.

I would better appreciate the same feelings analyzed from another perspective -- how to understand yourself better what to do and tell your partner and use this understanding to move forward.

Who has more weight in a startup Engineers or Business people?

It depends on the personalities involved. The old-school mentality is that business-people tell the programmers what to do. The modern approach appears to be the inverse. Perhaps in a few years things will stabilize to a nice equilibrium.

Engineers with business skills

i find that other employees in general dislike business people.

so i wonder, what is it that makes business people prickish assholes,

and what if any are engineer specific incompatibilities?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com