How the Other Half Works: An Adventure in the Low Status of Software Engineers

Software engineers are paid well, but they still don’t seem to move into leadership roles. Church investigates what happened: “There was a time, perhaps 20 years gone by now, when the Valley was different. Engineers ran the show. Technologists helped each other. Programmers worked in R&D environments with high levels of autonomy and encouragement. To paraphrase from one R&D shop’s internal slogan, bad ideas were good and good ideas were great. Silicon Valley was an underdog, a sideshow, an Ellis Island for misfits and led by ‘sheepdogs’ intent on keeping mainstream MBA culture (which would destroy the creative capacity of that industry, for good) away. That period ended.”