If you work in Tech you are a plumber by profession
This is going to be a fun read, I promise you. Because when I came up with this idea I myself chuckled a bit if I am being honest. But the more I pondered, more it stuck with me.
Ancient Plumbing
In one book I had read a while back, it took me through the lanes of one of the most ancient yet advanced for its age center of the Indus Valley civilization- Mohanjodaro. It was advanced not in its weaponary, agriculture or medicine. Something simple yet overlooked. It had a world class plumbing system that outperformed other civilizations and empires of that era. It helped the population flourish, system worked, and day to day life prospered because of the waste and the fixing taken care of by intricately made canals, sewage systems, bathing centers and fresh water treatment sytems. We are not trying to explore the actual innovative minds of this empire but the macro system implemented and revered by the rich and poor alike. The plumbing that kept the towns marching forward. This is one of the first recorded example of a true plumbing system keeping things together and running. Next that came after this was a different form of plumbing that took the world forward at light speed.
Plumbing in the Industrial Revolution
Our present success is preciecely and carefully layered on the innovations of the mid 18th to mid 19th century plumbing that came about in the first & second industrial revolution. This was the period wherein manual hard labour became mechanized with the engineering of machines and subsequent rise of factories. All of this machinery being used for textiles, chemicals, steam engines, coal energy, electricity output and railroads making in-roads (pun intended) brought a system in place that becamse critical for economic enrichment. This system did not need just traditional plymbing anymore. That had already been implemented and used but it demanded a different of plumber who could keep these machines running. The kind we call a technician now. Maintenance Engineers and Technicians kept the wheel spinning all over Europe. Between the first and second Industrial Revolutions, the world didn’t just get faster. It got more dependent on silent systems and the people who maintained them.
The Age of Silent Plumbing (Post-WWII)
I think of this period as defined by the philosophy of abundance. Imagine you are standing in the middle of a 1950s suburb for a moment. You look around and you see mass produced cars that worked well, houses built to last, fast food coming up around the corner. A moment of bliss, for any working man. But where are the plumbers? Especially in modern roles? You look across offices-accounting, marketing, sales. Any hidden plumbers? None yet. You start to wonder if modern jobs dont need any plumbing. The roles seemingly run smoothly, departments communicate over telephones and all sales and marketing is either print media or events in person. There are no new plumber roles being made. The old plumbers, machine techs and operators still exist. But they fade from view as the spotlight shifts to cubicles, ties, and typewriters.. Plumbing is dead, the world proclaims.
21st Century Plumbing- Knowledge Plumbing
In modern computer systems, when they talk to each other though a relayed network (also called the internet) they transfer knowledge. Nothing else. There are more technical words that you could use for this system- microservices, API, Databases, Cloud Computing and the list goes on forever. But its all knowledge transfer. My browser connects to the ISP and requests a webpage. It seeks to load that page once the server accepts the request and sends back the “knowledge” to the browser to display. This web of knowledge has become vastly complex and financially burdened. Exchange of emails between a lead in your funnel and engagement from that lead is also a knowledge transfer. You learn more, understand more because of all this data transfer. Modern systems are moving not just water and power thorugh plumbing, but peta and peta bytes of data across time zones, between machines and humans and at scale. This new system demands a new kind of a plumber in every team. A plumber who can keep the flow of the meaningful information running. Now these plumbers can be data analysts, developers, Agentic AI builders, systems administrators, SDRs, Marketing Ops and many more. This plumber **quietly maintainins the flow of information, context, and decisions that enable execuation at scale and across the hierarchy.
They ask, “What’s broken? What’s stuck? What’s leaking?”
This is why organizations needs to stratgeically implement plumbing across all verticals and hire plumbers to keep the flow of information running.
Other wise things break. Spectacularly.
Just ask Boeing.
A company once revered for engineering precision is now a case study in systems failure- not just mechanical, but organizational. Many other examples where plumbing took a backseat exist- Nokia, Hudson Bay and even present day Nike with their dwindling revenue. Somewhere they forgot modern plumbing, although invisible, does not take care of itself. When signals get missed, systems break. When teams stop talking, planes crash.
If there is one type of plumbing every team should focus on- it should be data plumbing. Not just dashboards on existing platforms. But asking the 5 Ws.
Why? What? When? Where? Who?
Ask the 5 Ws.
Fix the pipes.
Be a plumber first.