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Comment by photon137 | Hacker News Reader

I totally agree with this. I am a quant working at a bank writing trading strategies in C++. I have a colleague in "Infrastructure" (they call it) who sits two desks away from me and he writes C++ code that loads my code and runs it on a massive grid, does load balancing, interfacing and all kinds of cool stuff.

Yet he's in a "cost-center" and I'm in a revenue-center when, basically, without his work my code would be as useful as European politicians right now. This is insane but that's the sign of organizations that have hierarchies misaligned with what generates value for them. Basically, such organizations haven't figured out how to assign such "hidden" value a number while in my case it's simple to judge the value generated. (Actually, sometimes the ones in power are too afraid to admit they'd be useless without these guys).

Think about it, a programmer can very well exist without BAs/PMS etc but BAs/PMs can't exist without programmers.

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> Think about it, a programmer can very well exist without BAs/PMS etc but BAs/PMs can't exist without programmers.

That's exactly the same kind of self-bullshitting your parent comment was arguing against. NONE of the parts of a business can really work effectively without the others. A bunch of super-smart skilled programmers with attitudes, no leaders and no clear requirements is going to produce a lot of efficient, scalable, well-designed code that represents a handful of sub-projects that can't be integrated and don't do anything useful to end users.

I realize this is an extreme case, but you should check out Valve's corporate structure. No one has a "title", everyone can move to whatever project that want to work on, and they still turn out excellent software.

...but not on schedule.

Nothing ever get's built on schedule or within budget.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Time#.22Valve_Time.22

Yes. But Valve is a bit of an extreme case.

Just extremely honest about it.

While I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that analysis, Valve time has more to do with announcing release dates and then going way over them than it does not shipping on internal deadlines.

>> Nothing ever get's built on schedule or within budget.

If anything, things always deliver on schedule and within budget. This is due to massive scope creep (scope reduction) and reduced quality.

Sorry, what schedule?

And I'd bet you that every one of their projects with more than 10 people working on it has people doing mainly what is clearly recognizable as project management or business analysis.

BAs and PMs can't exist without programmer because they can't build while programmers can exist without BAs and PMs because they can as well as any human find out what is to be done. Seen any freelancing PMs or BA?

"Seen any freelancing PMs or BA?"

Seen many.If you understand business domains, have experience dealing with lines of business, managers, executives, you can freelance. Not everyone needs to (or should) write code.

But a freelance BA or PM cannot produce software independently, whereas a developer can. A developer has all of the skills of a developer, and many of the skills of a BA/PM, the reverse is not true.

A developer can definitely produce software independently. I do that as well. But the question is about selling that software to the business users. This is where a good BA/PM comes in again. I have said before that in small setup such as startups etc which produce software as their core business, a developer can possibly wear all hats. But in large corporate settings, developers do not want to go through the pain of people management, bureaucracy, follow ups etc.

Only if you choose your definitions to support your preconceived result by counting anyone with any programming ability whatsoever as "developer", no matter their primary field of work and expertise.

> programmers can exist without BAs and PMs because they can as well as any human find out what is to be done

Many of them may be able to do some of that, but most will be really bad at one or more aspects of it. What exactly is the problem with having people who specialize in these things?

> Seen any freelancing PMs or BA?

Lots.

I'll counter that - even not-so smart programmers with enormous egos would be able to ship something clunky, partly broken, not feature-perfect etc. (case in point: Linux - do you think they required full-time BAs to manage this very nicely working, feature-rich product? They did the BA/PM work themselves with Linus and others as anchors).

A team of super-smart skilled BA/PMs will produce zero, zilch, nada if there are no programmers.

"super-smart skilled programmers with attitudes" would figure out their priorities and the needs of their architecture. That's why Valve said that the single most important task is hiring - if you don't have super-smart people who can put egos and politics aside in favor of actually shipping something great, then you need BAs/PMs.

It's only when "who's doing what" becomes a problem that BAs etc are needed. If programmers were willing to spend some time doing "BA-work" and are willing to be bombarded by customers with inane queries and are willing to ask them questions to elicit their needs, then there'd be no need for BAs/PMs.

The only reason BA/PMs exist is because there are only 24 hours in a day and programmers can't do the above.

You are being kind of vague in your definition of "BA/PMs".

Developing a business model is very different from doing customer support, planing and managing programming, and doing business inteligence/marketing.

You are confusing business analysts from management consultancies like McKinsey/BCG/Bain (or CEO-reporting groups like the SPG at American Express) with software BA/PMS (the people under discussion here).

Software BA/PMs have nothing to do with business models and strategic planning.

About Linux: Linus is the brilliant manager there. He invented git to be able to drive his development methodology. He pushes back and brutally steamrolls rogue features into submission.

Linux is actually a good example of how a manager who is technically adept can do wonders for a project. It is NOT an example of how you do not need PMs.

It's not self-bullshitting. In many smaller companies the programmers already have to play the roles of the BAs/PMs.

Can you say the opposite for BAs/PMs? These positions are introduced after an organization or project reaches a certain size. It's simple specialization, you don't want everybody to do everything. When this transition happens, some programmers might become BAs or PMs. Alas, what about the opposite? How people that started as BAs ever make the transition to programmer? There is an obvious trajectory here.

You're talking about tech companies where the business is basically programming. In a company that builds cars or medical devices or a bank, a programmer is about as likely to become a BA as the other way round.

As for project management, that's, well, a management position. Tends to have a better salary, prestige and career prospects than non-management positions. That fully explains why many people want to move into management and hardly anyone who's chosen it as their original career wants to move out of it.

> In a company that builds cars or medical devices or a bank, a programmer is about as likely to become a BA as the other way round.

This makes no sense to me, what makes you think that?

Because in those companies, a BA needs in-depth knowledge of the domain that is as hard and slow for a programmer to acquire as it is for a non-programmer to learn programming.

> Think about it, a programmer can very well exist without BAs/PMS etc but BAs/PMs can't exist without programmers.

I do a lot of programming, but I think I bring a lot more value in the programming I avoid (or otherwise stop from happening).

Code is always a liability. Functionality is often an asset.

A BAs/PMs can reach the conclusion that a private label implementation (or 3 of them, with some outsourced integration work outsourced to competent integrators) is a much better solution, whereas a programmer (with any ingrained survival instinct) is unlikely to say "you need to fire me and all my team, and outsource this", or even think that, regardless of how true it is.

So, BAs/PMs can exist without programmers, and often do.

The reason you are getting more money than your friend is that (a) he is easier to replace, (b) you - or at least people in your group - can demonstrate your worth to the company, and (c) if you go to work for a competitor, the knowledge that will leak through you is much more harmful to your current employer and helpful to your new employer.

"A BAs/PMs can reach the conclusion that a private label implementation (or 3 of them, with some outsourced integration work outsourced to competent integrators) is a much better solution, whereas a programmer (with any ingrained survival instinct) is unlikely to say "you need to fire me and all my team, and outsource this", or even think that, regardless of how true it is."

Ah, but that's management at a consultant-level - you can hire an external consultant to do that for you. A company (or at least I wouldn't) won't hire PM/BAs as permanent employees to do that kind of stuff - particularly when you need independent advice - BA/PMs also have survival instincts, you know - they will always insist on "project management" regardless of how trivial the task is - if their job is at risk.

(I think the quant vs developer example is an exception - the marginal returns for a bank investing in desk quants is more than that for investing in devs - although what's the critical ratio is something hard to determine)

Which is worse, builing something nobody will use or not building anything at all?

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