The issue is that producers have no bar at all for the role, and the role is not well defined, unlike software engineers that typically have a 4 year degree, 2 year degree, or at the very least a code camp, before being hired. Would you hire someone for software engineering who had no engineering training or experience just because they can talk lucidly and in detail about what software they like?

Maybe a better software analogy here would be to compare producers to product managers. Great PMs are truly gold, but the PM role’s technical requirements are nebulous, and there are plenty of PMs who don’t know how to write code, and don’t know how to craft a good product, and don’t know how to communicate with customers effectively, essentially having no skills required for the job, but able to talk convincingly to enough of the right people to get hired and keep their jobs.