Fungible people considered less valuable than visible extroverts - not surprising. Given that the suits and money people run the place, such people are seen as valuable. The "cost centre", whom are incomprehensible and never seen, aren't so valuable. I was told a long time ago that "only salesmen make money for the company, the rest are just cost centres". Doubt that's changed.
Notice they never outsource management.
There's some great book I forgot the name of that goes into detail about how all of the world is run by extroverts due to human nature.
Also, I never look at engineers as a cost center. They are a profit center. Fight me.
I’ve always been puzzled why simply being the POC for a sale means you get a huge commission. A lot goes into what they are selling, from the product, to company reputation, to quality and support options. The person doing the convincing and negotiating a price seems as fungible as an engineer yet commands much higher premiums. Would love explanations!
Glengarry Glen Ross. The sales critter closed the deal, winning the struggle in the combative marketplace. All the engineers did was type something - no involvement in the difficult work. /s yeah, but sadly, it's the mainstream belief.
This is why I practice over employment. The winning strategy in tech as an employee is to do the bare minimum across many companies, not accomplish anything at your employer, as it won’t make a meaningful difference in your pay.
I did for a long time as well and agree it's really the only way to get ahead.
A really good adjacent piece on this is a now deleted blog post about the low social status of software engineers: https://archive.is/Qkr0i
That's a very interesting read. Oddly as an engineer-turned-CEO, I am my engineers' sheep dog.