That's not how game dev works. You can't expect engine programmers going to help concept artist or whatever sound designer. They work together for sure...
, it depends on what the problem is. They are software engineers, far more versatile people than you give them credit for
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Maybe they could write tools for them to automate some repetitive tasks, maybe they can optimise how they can preview their content in the game running on dev kits or PC’s or whatever harness they are using. Maybe they can fix some possibly annoying bugs in the exporters they use to send you or other people data that causes hours wasted going back and forth… maybe you write a small tool to help them keep the level complexity or the model detail/complexity in check, etc…
Also, as you have seen in those notes, there are many different teams writing code looking code and depending where the bottleneck is other coders may offer some help (it depends of course, just adding people sometimes actually hurts the process, but another pair of eyes can help during code reviews or bug hunting, etc…).
If others teams need help, that means they need to hire more people for that team, nothing else.
Sure, but it takes time to recruit/interview/hire and then onboard them: it makes the situation worse for a while before new starters become productive too. Even more before they get the overall project and company experience that makes them most effective.
Also, the faster you add them in batches the more you risk messing up team balance and values… you can wreck teams by dropping a number of bad apples.
In the end it is the outcome that matters… everything else is just all talk. Right now CiG has monetised the game development process successfully, let’s see when they can ship a complete product/finished MVP.
yes, you try to rally around pain points.
