Hired gun or creative muscle?

18 December 2014 Unknown 0 Comments

Image by Braid Creative and Consulting

Lately I've been thinking about the role engineers play in a company or project. I'm specifically thinking software engineers because that's what I do, but I'm sure this applies to any kind of engineer.

My question is this: are engineers simply hired guns or are they part of the creative muscle?

This article at Braid Creative and Consulting says that everyone is creative so I don't think you can say engineers are definitely creative or they are not. It depends on the individual and also how the organization treats them.

At Instructure—where I work—engineers are afforded a lot of influence in the creative process, but that might just be because of our engineering roots. Like a lot of startups, we were started with software engineers and in the first years of the company the engineers were the mightiest social entity in the company.

Other companies might treat their engineers like lowly hired guns or they might even outsource the engineering so that it doesn't even factor into the creativity of their products and services.

But here's my thought: because of engineers' proximity to the tools of creation, they are readily inspired with flashes of brilliance.

Product people and designers are inherently creative by nature. I mean that's why they're hired to do what they do. They're creative and they know what people like.

Engineers often don't know what people like—except for themselves—and maybe we don't care because we don't get people sometimes, but the one thing we've got going for us is using the tools of creation on a daily basis. Because we're knee deep in the code, it gives us a special perspective to what can be created and what would be awesome to create.

But that's just an idea.

Horace Dediu of Asymco.com says that engineers are creatives. That we are artists even.

What do you think? Hired gun or creative muscle?