Speaking as a former mechanic--no, you can't just walk up to a piece of machinery and fix it. That is a career, and takes quite a lot of time to learn. The mindset is similar, sure, but would you expect an average mechanic to be able to develop software as well?
> no, you can't just walk up to a piece of machinery and fix it.
But as a farmer, I have to walk up and fix equipment all the time.
There are people who are better at it then me. I will definitely hire them when I am under a time crunch, but they also charge way more money than the figures I quoted earlier, so you cannot afford to take them on full-time (if they are willing to work on a farm full-time) and have them to perform other duties on the farm that do not have the same value proposition.
> would you expect an average mechanic to be able to develop software as well?
Yes, absolutely. I distinctly remember when I started developing software as a teenager and was able to start writing software after a day or two of honing my thought process, without the benefit of having a professional background like a mechanic has. It is a very accessible activity. I don't know if they could walk into a SV tech company offering $200k/year, just as a farmhand who works on machinery isn't likely to walk into higher paying heavy equipment mechanic position. There are going to be better developers out there, but like mechanical work, there is a gradient.
