Seems like another anecdote of where seniority and experience in engineering is something that can't be quite replicated/replaced by technical qualifications:

Seems like another anecdote of where seniority and experience in engineering is something that can't be quite replicated/replaced by technical qualifications: > In the middle of the Max’s development, two of the most seasoned engineers in the F.A.A.’s Boeing office left. The engineers, who had a combined 50 years of experience, had joined the office at its creation...In their place, the F.A.A. appointed an engineer who had little experience in flight controls, and a new hire who had gotten his master’s degree three years earlier. People who worked with the two engineers said they seemed ill-equipped to identify any problems in a complex system like MCAS. I assume engineers new to the industry (and government regulation) would be lacking in "big picture" thinking and in confidence and skill in navigating and investigating bureaucracy – the NYT notes that Boeing's early MCAS report "didn't prompt additional scrutiny from the F.A.A. engineers". But the NYT also reports that the engineers made what seemed to be a straightforward technical misjudgment: > In several briefings in 2016, an F.A.A. test pilot learned the details of the system from Boeing. But the two F.A.A. engineers didn’t understand that MCAS could move the tail as much as 2.5 degrees, according to two people familiar with their thinking. Though it's hard to tell from that paragraph and its context whether the misunderstanding came from simple technical error and incompetence – e.g. misreading or not fully reading the specs – or deliberate deception/obfuscation from Boeing, and/or inexperience and naivety in doing regulatory work.