> I think engineers would do well to know that you are a COST CENTER to the business and the people who run it. They need you to make their product so they can make money but they hire you begrudgingly.
I don't agree. Engineers are sometimes a cost center, but they can also be a profit center. You can help revenue by decreasing expenses by automating something or noticing how the business is wasting money w/r/t tech and taking steps to help fix that.
You can also help revenue by increasing sales by building something, internal or external, that can either be sold or help sales.
But your larger point is correct. When you are starting at a company, know how your efforts are connected to revenue and sales. If your interviewer can't answer how they will be, find someone who can.
> You can help revenue by decreasing expenses by automating something or noticing how the business is wasting money w/r/t tech and taking steps to help fix that
I once worked with a process engineer who, a few months after being hired, had identified a number of manual processes as low hanging fruit that could be easily automated. He presented his findings to upper management, argued that they should let him build out a team to automate these processes, and that they could fund it with the headcount he's able to reduce. Management gave him the green light, adjusted his budget each quarter based on how much money he had saved the company over the previous quarter, and over a few years he was immensely successful.
You'll be treated as a cost center so long as you let other people think of you as a cost center, but if you can frame your contributions in a way that makes your value proposition obvious, it's possible to be treated differently while doing largely the same work.
> You'll be treated as a cost center so long as you let other people think of you as a cost center, but if you can frame your contributions in a way that makes your value proposition obvious, it's possible to be treated differently while doing largely the same work.
I can’t remember where I read this essay but it went along the lines of: no one is really interested in reducing costs, they’d much rather increase revenue, the reason being that the larger your budget the more important you are on the totem pole and reducing your (already approved) expenses doesn’t make your budget larger.
I don't agree. Engineers are sometimes a cost center, but they can also be a profit center. You can help revenue by decreasing expenses by automating something or noticing how the business is wasting money w/r/t tech and taking steps to help fix that.
You can also help revenue by increasing sales by building something, internal or external, that can either be sold or help sales.
But your larger point is correct. When you are starting at a company, know how your efforts are connected to revenue and sales. If your interviewer can't answer how they will be, find someone who can.
I wrote a bit more about understanding the business here: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2018/10/12/understand-the...