For problems that can be solved with only a small amount of simple code that is true. However software can become very complex and the larger/more complex the problem is the more important software developers are. It quickly becomes easier to teach software developers enough of your domain than to teach domain experts software.

In a complex project the hard parts about software are harder than the hard parts about the domain.

I've seen the type of code electrical engineers write (at least as hard a domain as software). They can write code, but it isn't good.

Not all kinds of programming are the same.

Web dev is low entry barrier and most web devs don’t need a very deep knowledge base.

Embedded, low level language, using optimizations of the OS / hardware require MUCH more specialized knowledge. Most of the 4 year undergraduate program for Computer Science self selects for mathematics inclined students who then learn how to read and learn advanced mathematics / programming concepts.

There’s nothing that is a hard limit to prevent domain expert autodidacts from picking up programming, but the deeper the programming knowledge, the more the distribution curves of programmers / non-programmers will be able to succeed.

Non programmers are more likely to be flexible to find less programming-specific methods to solve the overall problem, which I very much welcome. But I think LLM-based app development mostly just democratizes the entry into programming.

Every single time I try to get a domain expert at $job to let me learn more about the domain it goes goes nowhere.

My belief is that engineers should be the prime candidates to be learning the domain, because it can positively influence product development. There’s too many layers between engineers and the the domain IME

In practice, does that happen? Usually companies try to bring the best of both and build from there.

This is interesting. Do you know of any examples of successful tech companies built by non-technical founders?

It is my experience that most of these business domain experts snore the moment you talk about anything related to the difficulties of creating software.

That doesn't track at all IME.

Programming is not something you can teach to people who are not interested in it in the first place. This is why campaigns like "Learn to code" are doomed to fail.

Whereas (good) programmers strive to understand the domain of whatever problem they're solving. They're comfortable with the unknown, and know how to ask the right questions and gather requirements. They might not become domain experts, but can certainly learn enough to write software within that domain.

Generative "AI" tools can now certainly help domain experts turn their requirements into software without learning how to program, but the tech is not there yet to make them entirely self-sufficient.

So we'll continue to need both roles collaborating as they always have for quite a while still.