From Two Days to Two Hours: The Rising Costs of Development

The current trend in development seems to indicate that analysts are becoming less common than junior developers. The reasoning is straightforward: if a developer can write code based on a couple of chat messages, then precise technical specifications are deemed unnecessary, leading to the conclusion that analysts are also not needed. While there is some truth to this, it overlooks a crucial aspect of analytics work. Some tasks can indeed be described as mechanical, where the goal is to provide clear instructions to avoid rework. For many feature-level tasks, this process has become more efficient; recently, I was able to make changes in just a couple of hours, a task that previously would have taken two days. However, there remains a vital component of analytics that cannot be ignored: understanding the overall direction of a project. This aspect is irreplaceable. I recently experienced a situation where I delivered a solution quickly and efficiently, yet it turned out to be incorrect. How did that happen?