if you don't know what your company is doing, and your intricate part in that dance, you are not really providing value to the company, or more importantly to yourself.
/bold statement
How can you make decisions if you don't understand the business impact? How do you know what if that optimization is worth the cost of implementation? If you don't know the impact of a product release on your customers, what are you really doing?
To say that as a tech person "I don't know the business side" you are being deliberately ignorant. "business" is simple[1]. You are being just as annoying at those useless managers who demand x feature yesterday and don't bother to think about the ramifications.
1)It really is, you are trying to make people give you cash for something. that might be things like food, or vapour (ie initial coin offerings). The mechanics are the same, monetary units in exchange for goods or services. To attach a special mystique to the process is to give power to charlatans. (see repacking of subprime debt)
TL;DR:
If you don't know what your buisness does, you are like the idiot manager dilbert.
Not necessarily true in big companies. A devops middle manager doesn't need to know whether the company is building widgets or dohickies; their job is to keep the software running securely. CTO/VP Eng should certainly know more about business priorities.
At smaller companies it is more important. Also can improve morale.
How do you know what level of security is required?
How do you prioritise requests?
How do you know which team to ask favours from?
How do you get more money for your department?
How do you avoid the poop-gravity interaction cycle?
All of this is intrinsically linked to the business logic/goals of the company.
For example: Our team worked with $cashCow team to reduce time to live by x percent. We have saved the company y percent a year. Now give our team more cash we can do it for other teams.
That requires a basic understanding of the business, and its priorities, so you can support the most important internal users and make them more efficient.
if you don't know what your company is doing, and your intricate part in that dance, you are not really providing value to the company, or more importantly to yourself.
/bold statement
How can you make decisions if you don't understand the business impact? How do you know what if that optimization is worth the cost of implementation? If you don't know the impact of a product release on your customers, what are you really doing?
To say that as a tech person "I don't know the business side" you are being deliberately ignorant. "business" is simple[1]. You are being just as annoying at those useless managers who demand x feature yesterday and don't bother to think about the ramifications.
1)It really is, you are trying to make people give you cash for something. that might be things like food, or vapour (ie initial coin offerings). The mechanics are the same, monetary units in exchange for goods or services. To attach a special mystique to the process is to give power to charlatans. (see repacking of subprime debt)
TL;DR:
If you don't know what your buisness does, you are like the idiot manager dilbert.