I don't see how you're disagreeing with me. I didn't say that Jack the EE couldn't be a perfectly serviceable developer. I've worked with a number who are (and a few who excelled). My point is that the management teams (with no one with software experience) perceive one specific person's relative ease at picking up programming as the general case for programming. This causes them to underestimate what it takes to actually build up the software portion of their business. This happens especially for non-software companies in the same way that software companies might underestimate the difficulty of other fields (how many startups have we seen posted here on HN that are composed of primarily programmers and think they'll revolutionize the fashion industry, the car audio industry, or the banking industry?).

And since management teams in large companies tend to grow out of whichever departments are the primary domains, if software is always seen as tertiary then managers with software background are consistently absent or too few to clear up this confusion.

If Jack can teach himself how to program competently, you’ve just made a great argument for him to stop fucking around being an EE and switch to a software job where he can make a ton more money.

Just because an arbitrary person can learn how to do X, it doesn’t change the fact that there is a huge shortage of people who can competently X. The price paid for software development is a product of supply and demand, not how “special” software developers are.

They value people based on 'visibility' at my place. Unfortunately, some people who get that visibility are just putting out their own fires. I had a tech lead that was not very good in my opinion, but the business and management loved him.

Sometimes I think about becoming a mechanic. They make good money.

Having worked at a car dealership- don't work at one of those, at the very least. Like many established industries, being a car mechanic doesn't have too many ways up from there- you can get all the certs you want, but you'll never be management- and compensation increases are based more on tenure than anything else. If you can teach yourself and then get into a performance garage or something like that, go for it! You'll likely wind up better off buying a project car to learn on or going to a technical school in off time than going full-tilt into mechanicary- and you'll have a chance to see if it's right for you before you switch. Also, if you like that stuff, and want to create things, consider mechanical engineering of some flavor.

I had a 25-30 year old Caprice and then tracked a new Camaro. I have a bit of mechanical experience with all the work that comes with those. Of course electric vehicles will be the next big thing.

I definitely would not work at a dealer or chain. Being part of a small company or your own would be great. Not moving up wouldn't be a big deal in that kind of role.

On a side note, I'm confused why everyone is obsessed with moving up. Can't people just be happy where they are? I really don't see much difference in my company between the various levels, nor is it a very big promotion at 7%.