“ETL” also involves data modeling. This is a thinking role beyond many people’s understanding. Quite often the “Thinkers” demand data but have very little understanding how to structure it when you get temporal aspects (slow changing dimensions etc), new types of data (rules for types) etc. These and more are quite often left/relegated to ETL guys as housekeeping. Except it isn’t. It’s architecting the house.

I was once accused by a Windows C++ programmer who just couldn't grok UNIX to be a "string cutter", but honestly, there is nothing so viscerally information technology as extract-transform-load. The irony of his accusation was that it was just one of many facets of things that I do and can/know how to do. ETL is really the core of IT by definition.

A lot of the hardcore C++ programmers look down on the whole IT area of programming (as opposed to systems, graphics, embedded etc.), maybe that was the reason.

No, this guy doesn't know anything but Windows.