You're conflating work with responsibility. Let me ask you this: How many product managers does it take to make a product?
Its interesting that a lot of the replies here are railing against the idea that software devs are used as cogs in a machine, yet at the same time all replies are arguing that a dev should only be a cog in the machine, and any further context/awareness/action outside of being a cog should either not be expected or make the dev eligible for an outsized reward.
So to zoom in on your reply:
> Why should an employee care
Because they are paid to make the company profitable, and if they fail to do so they may not continue to be employed. I'm not sure why this is controversial. This requires no profit sharing to be in place, because it is simply the job that is required of the employee. It is probably by far the most general description of a job that is not: "the thing you do for money".
It may very well appear that the employee has no direct influence on company profitability, but since this is nearly impossible to measure objectively the next best thing is to try to make sure that he or she does by listening to signals coming down the hierarchy of management. Your PO telling you to hack a thing together is such a signal, and should be listened to. You warning about a giant pile of tech debt is a signal you should send to your PO, that he/she should listen to.
Its interesting that a lot of the replies here are railing against the idea that software devs are used as cogs in a machine, yet at the same time all replies are arguing that a dev should only be a cog in the machine, and any further context/awareness/action outside of being a cog should either not be expected or make the dev eligible for an outsized reward.
So to zoom in on your reply:
> Why should an employee care
Because they are paid to make the company profitable, and if they fail to do so they may not continue to be employed. I'm not sure why this is controversial. This requires no profit sharing to be in place, because it is simply the job that is required of the employee. It is probably by far the most general description of a job that is not: "the thing you do for money".
It may very well appear that the employee has no direct influence on company profitability, but since this is nearly impossible to measure objectively the next best thing is to try to make sure that he or she does by listening to signals coming down the hierarchy of management. Your PO telling you to hack a thing together is such a signal, and should be listened to. You warning about a giant pile of tech debt is a signal you should send to your PO, that he/she should listen to.
This is all absolutely trivial.