Fungible Developers
I’m always puzzled as to why many purchasing departments don’t understand that software engineers are not fungible assets.
The term “fungible asset” is something I first came across when Simon Stewart was giving a talk during my boot-camp induction when we were both at Facebook. A fungible asset is something you can swap for an equivalent with no detrimental effect, and software engineers definitely aren’t trivially swappable.
You can swap one 10 euro note for another because they’re fungible assets, but few other things are. Would most folk accept someone giving you a Polo instead of a Porsche?, No?, Why not? They’re both cars and they’ll both get you from A to B, what’s the problem?
The problem is cars, like software engineers, are not fungible assets. They have different performance characteristics, different abilities, and, in some cases, some variants can not tackle certain problems efficiently (would you like to try and set a lap record of the Nürburgring in a Polo when everyone else is using a Porsche 911?, or take a Ford Mustang on an off-roading course?).
So please educate your purchasing departments. I know they have constraints and regulations in place to ensure that what a company buys is ethically sourced and appropriate, but sticking to the idea that you can get an equivalently performing software team from one vendor for 10%, 20%, or more below another vendors quote, when both quotes are honest and fair, rarely works out well.