wouldn’t managers be the ones who likely pushed for the pattern you’re remarking upon? A friend of mine is currently studying to be a civil engineer. As part o

wouldn’t managers be the ones who likely pushed for the pattern you’re remarking upon? A friend of mine is currently studying to be a civil engineer. As part of his program, he's required to take multiple courses in engineering ethics and business ethics, as well as economics and law. He's relayed to me numerous anecdotes from lectures all about engineers who caved to pressure from non-engineer business and political stakeholders. When the bridge collapsed or the building fell over, it was the engineers who were to blame. Again and again it was drilled into the class that you, as an engineer, are the last word when it comes to defending sound engineering principles. They went on to learn about how this is the basis for the structure of engineering firms and that it's not allowed for civil engineers to work in a subordinate role at a company run by non-engineers, in order to prevent a non-engineer from ordering an employee to affix their seal to a building plan. Perhaps we need something similar for software developers (seems a little absurd to call them engineers in light of the above, doesn't it?) I don't see how we'd enforce it though, since any kid can take a laptop into their bedroom and write a program with potentially millions of users.