Engineers vs Management

eh, whataboutismas much as it pains me to say it, but those "really really good engineers" are just cogs in the machine, providing services for money; the management running the machine, ultimately decide which direction the machines runs.it's a cynical take, but cogs are replaceable, and would (often with not that major of an adjustment) easily fit other machines, ones that perhaps run in directions we don't like or care about.(like seriously, tech companies like Sp

Feels like tech companies treat engineers like implementation details until they need to hire more of them.

No, ultimately the managers and executives can do nothing without the engineers. At the end of the day some engineer has to build the thing, and no one is holding a gun to their head to do so. They are willingly trading their time for money to do work that makes the world a worse place for us and a better place for Google.

i think the answer is - come work for a FANG company. it's not a simple crud app, the engineers are not excited. they are above average, and they get paid more based on col and value add - for faang, the engineering is not cost center, it's the business value.

Give me engineers who value solving problems, sometimes with code, over “good” engineers every single day of the week.

"That wall might be 2 years in the future so usually it is next to impossible to convince anyone to take engineers out of product development. Even more so because working on this changes absolutely nothing for the end user"It seems to be the same story in fiels of Infrastructure maintenance, Aircraft design (boeing Max), and mortgage CDOs (2008). Was it always like this or the new management doesn not care untill something explodes?

Sort of, but engineering is more measurable. If you can reduce a component's defect rate, then the company will likely go with your new idea. If you can't reduce a defect rate, then you won't have any lingering feelings that your way would have been better.Engineers also tend not to have blogs to rant about this stuff, so if they do have anguish they don't publicize it. It's all kind of a generalization though, so YMMV.

OK. I'll try to play devil's advocate here.Disclaimer: I think of myself as an engineer.I do believe your frustration comes from observing actual issues and you're right to express your disappointment. However, I can see a lot of cynicism in your tone, and I feel there's a huge amount of judgement on those "cons" without trying to peek behind the curtain on what makes them behave like that.To provide a different viewpoint - I've often seen this desire

They're not hurting for devs, they're hurting for engineers.

Are you implying that a CEO is more valuable than a good engineer?