Techy folks with people skills are in high demand nowadays.
Someone who can sell a project directly to the customer while also knowing exactly what is possible and in what timeframe without having to consult someone else is worth their weight in gold.
We still have a few too many "hype-men" type salespeople who are in the Always Be Closing mindset without any sense of what's actually deliverable or even sensible.
I agree, although even devs with no people skills could even do better than those sales people or managers. They could hear customers pain points, clear goals on what to optimize for (revenue, clickthrough, etc) and then build some nice data science product within a reasonable timeframe.
But you usually have these proxy people, who then have to do countless internal meetings to figure out what to actually do, imposing extra ordinary requirements and work hours and that’s why we have all these posts with people hating meetings, burning out and switching fields. If only the middle management and product was tech educated and oriented..
Someone who can sell a project directly to the customer while also knowing exactly what is possible and in what timeframe without having to consult someone else is worth their weight in gold.
We still have a few too many "hype-men" type salespeople who are in the Always Be Closing mindset without any sense of what's actually deliverable or even sensible.