The author seems to be making statements about what the job is.

Are you saying we shouldn't take those literally, but as what the new (bad faith) thinking about the job should be?

Seems these people are in an adversarial relationship with doing actual work. They advocate for doing noting beyond the absolute minimum you are directly instructed to do.

So essentially taking out all independence from work and making it a dull box checking job.

So kind of like outsource workers but one might argue this has a social guided justification.

Sounds eerily similar to how companies generally operate, by paying the absolute minimum to get the job they want done. Interesting how people don't seem to like when labor takes the same aproach.

I don't have to defend any company out there, but that's not how in my 20+ years experience, i think it works. You do your work well, you show professionalism, does your manager think that you are important for the team? You are well paid. Are you just doing the regular stuff, not being active on meetings, not actually helping anyone, or doing anything other than what you think that "your job is": Then you are going to get just a regular salary. You do more, you get more. If you don't get more, you find a job where you get more. This weak man game like "oh i'm not going enough money, so i will stay here and do nothing", doesn't make sense in a market like ours with skill shortage. Worse developers are the spoiled one, that think that the whole world conspire against them.