The value of American engineers is their ability to a) speak english well, b) show up at the office, and c) swallow large amounts of debt for college to ease hiring. So I'm not sure how outsourcing plays into this at all.
I have never before heard of someone expressing a desire to hire a product manager/marketer/sales/brand strategist/designer because they're a good engineer. It actually shocked me you would consider skills involved related at all. I would not expect this from an engineer, and it would make hiring one immensely difficult. That's more the type of skill that leads to starting your own company.
Hmm, I'd heard that hiring product managers that were excellent engineers is very common in the Valley. Not as an exception, but as a "preferred" qualification.
I have. They don't have to be amazing engineers, but a background with some engineer knowledge is always a big plus.
I'm not sure why you believe engineers would be uniquely entitled to make decisions about what they're building. Even in a classical engineering job (building a bridge) they don't get to go "nope, this is a bad idea let's not build it." At best they can say "this is what it'll take to do what you want, is it worth it to you?"
Really, deciding what to do is literally the only job top management even has. It's not often shared with the people doing the work.
To use your bridge example, the "what" is "build a bridge" and the "how" is type of bridge, where beams go, etc.
That could just as easily be reframed as a more general "what" of "increase traffic capacity from A to B". The "how" might be a bridge, or it might be a new road that routes around the lake, a tunnel, or some other solution.
You could also frame it as more specific "what" of "build a suspension bridge" where the "how" no longer includes as many decisions.
You'd see the same distinction form between a micromanager and a hands-off manager. The former leaving almost all of the decision making in the "what" and the latter leaving almost all of it in the "how".
A complete specification could just be executed. It is the program.
