In a company I work for the more essential role would be someone responsible for either larger chunk of work or more important chunk of work.
Think analyst solely responsible for communication with customer and giving tasks to multiple programmers. Think programmer being told "we need this new module" along with phone call to contact person in customer company being trusted that new module happen and questions will be asked and no customer will be offended in the process. It might mean being assigned to tasks that are really important as opposed to tasks that are less important.
There is more critical and less critical (essential) work. Who gets which one depends on trust a lot. It is not so much about deep knowledge of some tech, although that one play the role. Tech is easily learnable. Whether you are able to makes sense of vague customer, whether you can work without having hand holded is more of factor.
That's not a very realistic example. In the real world, the communication with analyst goes both ways - the programmers also have to tell him what is feasible and what is not.
The problem with your argument is that you see a person "making" the decisions, and somehow you decided that he is the important guy. But if he is not a complete idiot, he is not making the decisions alone in the dark, but always goes to the more experienced (with the technology) people to get their opinion.
Of course there is important and less important work. But this has nothing to do with an importance of a job or profession, which is an ill-posed question to begin with.
And regarding responsibility.. I believe it's mostly status game again. If you don't have anything to lose, you don't have "more responsibility". A doctor or nurse, who can kill a patient and go to prison for that, has responsibility. A manager who will at worst lose the extra money and social status he gained for "having more responsibility" doesn't actually have any more responsibility - because he has in fact nothing to lose compared to what he had before.
It was real world example and had nothing to do with making decisions.
> That's not a very realistic example. In the real world, the communication with analyst goes both ways - the programmers also have to tell him what is feasible and what is not.
Yes and many people have problem to handle that. Also, programmers sometimes lie. But mostly, you go visit customer and three people there tell you completely contradictory requirements. And they hate each other and occasionally lie. Or more likely, give you requirements that make no sense, you have to ask right questions and push them right directions. The technology is not the issue there, making sense of vague requirements and creating consistent goal is. It is harder to replace such person then css guy. Of course it is immensely important how software looks like, but that skill is easier to measure during interview.
But as I told, the real difference is how much supervision you need, how likely you are to create organizational mess and so on.
A single programmer can not do all that much damage and there are processes to mitigate that risk. The point of contact can make a lot of damage. That is why it is more essential - your failure has bigger consequences for the whole project/company.
> And regarding responsibility.. I believe it's mostly status game again.
It is not. Responsibility is not about being punished nor height of that punishment. It is about being reliable without there being the need for threat of punishment over your head. If you don't work unless there is daily standup to report progress at, then you can not be trusted with larger more important tasks - no matter how genius you are.
If I am manager and tell you "this is half written requirements and the phone number" can she or he just go back to the office expecting you to communicate/do the rest? Or does he/she needs to visit you every week and ask you right questions and remind you to send important mails? That is the responsibility and that is what many people fail at.
All your arguments are also true in the reverse. It's not like analysts give programmers a proof that the work they should do is without contradictions. There are also many decisions that programmers make which actually do have big impact, although nobody really notices because there is no one to understand.
> But as I told, the real difference is how much supervision you need, how likely you are to create organizational mess and so on.
Yeah, but this is true for any skill. Anybody who has skill doesn't need supervision. It does not by itself prove that some role has "bigger impact".
> Responsibility is not about being punished nor height of that punishment.
I am talking about "having responsibility", you're talking about "being responsible". Those are two different things.
Think analyst solely responsible for communication with customer and giving tasks to multiple programmers. Think programmer being told "we need this new module" along with phone call to contact person in customer company being trusted that new module happen and questions will be asked and no customer will be offended in the process. It might mean being assigned to tasks that are really important as opposed to tasks that are less important.
There is more critical and less critical (essential) work. Who gets which one depends on trust a lot. It is not so much about deep knowledge of some tech, although that one play the role. Tech is easily learnable. Whether you are able to makes sense of vague customer, whether you can work without having hand holded is more of factor.