As many other people on HN, I am an advocate for software engineers and I think it is important that software engineers themselves develop expertise and become owners in their particular fields of application, their processes, etc.

Attempts to undermine their role and turn developers into simple cogs in the machine rub me the wrong way.

I perceive (you might disagree) that Design Thinking, Agile, Scrum, and similar things as attempt for designers, PMs, etc. to insert themselves into the process, not as equal partners, but as people with elevated privileges over software developers.

I don't necessarily disagree with the idea and ideals of Design Thinking. I disagree with the practitioners and their perception of themselves as something special over software developer.

I also think that my original analogy at the top is perfectly understood by a lot of people here as much as I understand the type of people on HN.

having a specific negative experience can be interesting, why don't you talk about that instead? generally, having been both the "design thinker" and the thinkee, in both the formal big corporate setting you are lamenting and in a less formal research environment, my and my colleagues experiences have been unequivocally positive. nobody is thinking about things in terms of, "perception of themselves as something special over software developer." that may be a problem unrelated to "design thinking," i can see how any creative thinking exercise can test people's interpersonal relationships differently than say, telling Claude what to do.