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> that governments need to put some "guardrails" around engineers and the tech titans they serve The evil engineers! Not the managers, CEOs and so on, but engi

> that governments need to put some "guardrails" around engineers and the tech titans they serve The evil engineers! Not the managers, CEOs and so on, but engineers. The true root of evil. Finally someone recognizes who's really at fault </sarcasm>

throwawaywindev 7y ago
A lot of MSFT management are engineers (including the CEO) so that’s probably not what he meant. Disclosure: I work at MSFT.
- mikestew 7y ago
  It probably is what he meant, because this is not a casual email but written for publication. If he used the word “engineer”, I will assume he meant “engineer”, and it is not necessary that you speak for management to correct perceived misunderstandings. (NPR could have misstated Smith’s intent, but imma need a citation.)
skrebbel 7y ago
Stop pushing the blame upstairs. If you knowingly build software that hurts people, you share the blame. The job market for programmers has never been better. "My boss told me to do it" is not an excuse. I, for one, hope more engineers involved in fraud (eg VW), privacy breaches (eg Facebook) etc get tried and punished. It might help make programmers realize that yes, your work actually affects real humans and yes, you're partly responsible for getting it right. If your boss makes you write evil crap, quit and get a better job. No need to be all courageous and write an angry blog post, most of us are wimps and that's fine. But that doesn't mean you can't vote with your feet. We need engineers to stop being willing to work anywhere as long as the pay is good and the tech is cool.
- pacala 7y ago
  The entire adtech industry, which happens to dominates both tech and the economy, is a giant privacy violation machine. Looks like everyone is happy to cash in a fat check, fatter as you move up the totem pole. Après nous le déluge.
- jhall1468 7y ago
  The moment you open that door you have created the ultimate scapegoat in every corporate decision. Now every engineer is personally responsible for corporate decisions. It's easy when you look at VW and Facebook, but the more nuanced these things get, the more that what your advocating for is that programmers have to be lawyers as well. This horrible precedent and pushes the blame for everything downstairs. Meanwhile, corporate execs have the very corporate shielding you're advocating that engineers don't. Maybe you think they too shouldn't have such protections, but how you can advocate for personal liability for programmers without first implementing personal liability for executives is beyond me. This so incredibly short-sighted.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - skrebbel 7y ago
    I don't advocate that corporate execs have shielding and the engineers don't. Where did you read that? It sounds to me that you're misreading my comment on purpose, to make an us-vs-them argument that I fundamentally disagree with. This isn't about engineers vs bosses, it's about doing the right thing no matter what's on your business card. The argument "if we can't shift the blame up, it'll automatically go down" simply doesn't make sense to me. You, and you alone, can choose to stop building evil shit.
    - jhall1468 7y ago
      I read that by the fact that you only talked about punishing engineers. And I'm not misreading your comment on purpose, trust me I had to read it 4 times just to make sure I wasn't crazy and I was actually reading what I thought I was: someone advocating that bottom of the food chain employees be criminally liable for code they write. You are making an us-vs-them argument, to be sure. Your "us" is consumers and your "them" are employees, rather than corporate executives that make the decisions. I'm not a lawyer. I expect if I'm being asked to do something, it's been vetted by our corporate legal team. I should not be expected to know every aspect of criminal and civil law to protect myself from my employer. What you are suggesting is absurd, but fortunately, I think most would agree with me on that.
- 0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
  >I, for one, hope more engineers involved in fraud (eg VW), privacy breaches (eg Facebook) etc get tried and punished. It might help make programmers realize that yes, your work actually affects real humans and yes, you're partly responsible for getting it right. You can't do this without a lot of ethical backing, supportive law resources, whistleblower protections, and better controls on letting people into the industry. It will be an utter disaster if you don't have those protections.
  - blackflame7000 7y ago
    The halting problem shows that it is impossible to verify a program is bug free. Therefore anyone could say that some feature X that harms the user is actually just a bug and you would be hard pressed to beat reasonable doubt Edit: I love downvotes without rebuttal.
    - 0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
      Yeah how do we ever find fault in auto accidents since we don't understand all of physics
      - blackflame7000 7y ago
        Some guy named Newton solved the physics problem you’re referring to. He never got around to computational theory though.
    - pilsetnieks 7y ago
      > anyone could say that some feature X that harms the user is actually just a bug and you would be hard pressed to beat reasonable doubt That would fall under criminal negligence then.
      - blackflame7000 7y ago
        Ahh, so you see, additional regulation is not required.
- bcrosby95 7y ago
  If you think salaries are high now, just wait until every engineer needs a personal lawyer to review every change request their boss makes of them.
  - 0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
    You can train them enough to not be helpless without a lawyer. Doctors don't need one for every medical decision they make. You do need larger support systems to make this work though and that doesn't get built overnight. It certainly does limit new engineer throughput for society because of training times and increase salaries though.
    - salawat 7y ago
      Uh, Doctor example isn't the best seeing as there is an entire industry in existence to handle the possibility that a doctor in the course of doing their job may end up causing harm, unintentional or not. I.e. malpractice insurance. I find this push of responsibility to the engineers encouraging. Finally may come the legislative framework through which I can shoot down an employer's design knowing that in all odds anyone else with a license at stake won't cave to mere financial coercion.
      - 0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
        We would need a similar-in-principle industry for engineers if they are legally and professionally responsible for code. It would likely be smaller and cheaper since most of us are not responsible for lives though. You definitely wouldn't need a lawyer on retainer.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        bcrosby95 7y ago
        If you work at a place like Facebook or Google it would probably be more expensive. You would be looking at liabilities in the hundreds of millions for a single bug.
- tluyben2 7y ago
  Not very realistic for people who need to put food on the table and where the evil vs non evil is not that clear. Especially if you work on a very small cog in the machine, which most engineers do ofcourse. Where do you draw the line? Maybe your company makes software that is nice but it is sold to companies using it for evil? I think this is too vague and not solvable by engineers unless in clear cut cases like you mention; not many of those really. There are not infinite jobs either; most companies will, at some stage, do things that you might consider evil. It is generally management that should be blamed; they have the oversight and make decisions about client base etc. In rare cases where an engineer knew they were wrong very clearly but still did it, then sure, punishment is ok. Edit; I see you are from Eindhoven; I was born close to there and studied at the TUE under Dijkstra pupils. We had a little group at the time that believed in Dijkstra like thinking; software has to be proven correct and we added that it has to be ethical. It was an idea to somehow make software dev a gild. Then we grew up and saw nothing like that is possible unless you want the world to grind to a halt. The Netherlands would be a likely candidate for this kind of experiment though; you cannot really die of poverty there unless mentally ill, so it is easier to ‘just quit’ if you think your boss went satan on you.
  - enraged_camel 7y ago
    >>Not very realistic for people who need to put food on the table and where the evil vs non evil is not that clear. Evil vs. non-evil being not that clear is not a problem. That's why we have the court system: to sort those types of things out. As for "needing to put food on the table", how far are you willing to take that logic? It seems you could use it to justify virtually any behavior, as long as you get paid doing it.
    - andreilys 7y ago
      I don’t think the court system is a panacea for solving moral dilemmas. Especially in tech where things move much quicker than our laws can keep up with.
    - Supermancho 7y ago
      > Evil vs. non-evil being not that clear is not a problem. Evil isnt the same as immoral, excepting a subjective interpretation of equivalence. Whats worse is a lack of standardization (or even distinction) between terminology to describe behaviors (eg pernicious, evil, immoral, corrupt, dangerous, et al). What is evil to you is certainly not the same as what is evil to me...much less how a legal doctrine is worded. It is a HUGE problem that people dont agree on what constitutes undesired action.
- gautamdivgi 7y ago
  >>> Stop pushing the blame upstairs. If you knowingly build software that hurts people, you share the blame. The job market for programmers has never been better. "My boss told me to do it" is not an excuse. It is an excuse. If my livelihood depends on it, my children's health insurance depends on it (especially if you have kids that need continuous care), my kids university tuition depends on it, etc, etc... So, personally that's a very narrow view to take. Unless there is a support system that can maintain comparable quality of life for engineers who speak up and quit it's not going to happen. I know I wouldn't care unless someone really made it worth my while to do so.
  - navigatesol 7y ago
    >I know I wouldn't care unless someone really made it worth my while to do so. This mentality is appalling.
  - tfehring 7y ago
    Your and your children’s well being depend on your having a job. They don’t depend strictly on your current job. Approximately all engineers at big tech companies could put in their 2 week’s notice on Monday and find another job above the 95th salary percentile during that 2 week period.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      That is a very optimistic view about how easy it is for the average engineer (many of whom are not even in software) to land a new job. Especially one that doesn't require them to move or otherwise make significant changes.
      - tfehring 7y ago
        My comment referred to engineers at big tech companies, not the average engineer more generally. The job market is still really strong for engineers across the board, not just SWE. Experience at big tech companies still looks great on a resume, and those companies tend to be geographically concentrated in areas with lots of other tech companies. To be clear, those engineers' quality of life may be dependent on working at big tech companies. But their ability to make a living and support their families is not. They have made the decision to contribute to abuses of human rights in exchange for a larger salary (and prestige, among other factors), and at least in my eyes, they're just as responsible for the consequences of that decision as their managers are.
- traderjane 7y ago
  Is the fast food worker responsible for thinking about American dietary health? Is the logger responsible for thinking about ecological health? Is the coal miner responsible for thinking about clean air? In some ways the fast food worker is even more directly responsible for the end-product. Burgers require regional labor; software can be made by somebody in Australia or China.
- Iolaum 7y ago
  At Greece we have a saying. The fish smells from the head. While engineers share some of the blame if their corp does something evil/unlawful putting them on the spotlight instead of the people actually making the decisions is disingenuous.
- kgwxd 7y ago
  100 harmless modules can be built by 100 developers and be easily pieced together to form something devious. Also, a program can be harmless and even useful if used for personal/internal purposes but be pure evil when locked down and distributed.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  I’m ok with prosecuting software developers individually if we first require them to adhere to a set of standards in a similar fashion to real engineers.
  - coding123 7y ago
    It is interesting, but isn't the software organization, in general, the responsible party? If that software company and the sole developer are the same person (a one man company) then you already have that. There's no software equivalent of a software engineer coming to someone's house to fix the code in an Alexa controlled light bulb - the responsible party is the lightbulb company.
    - nickpsecurity 7y ago
      Mostly true. I will note exceptions. There's some companies like Altran Praxis that warranty their high-quality software. Far as visits, folks with AS/400's told me IBM techs would occasinally show up to do maintenance on the systems before they fully broke. I think the managed appliances are the closest thing to your analogy, though.
- timwaagh 7y ago
  Actually 'my boss told me to build it' is an excuse. if you dont build it, you breach contract. you get fired or possibly sued for damages or breach of contract (as a contractor or external consultant). The job market isn't exactly great for recently fired engineers either. Nobody is above the law, and it is more than likely that some unlucky 'git-blamed' junior is going to face such a case some day instead of the boss who ordered it. But i hope in that case a judge will take the migitating circumstances into account.
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    Agreed. I dislike how every time we push for the "hot market for programmers" meme that only exists in the SV-like bubbles. Everywhere else around the world, it's just a regular job people do to put food on the table. Should we boycott people who work in the defense industry as well?
    - eropple 7y ago
      I've never lived in Silicon Valley. And I've been fired from jobs before. The longest I was ever unemployed not of my own volition was twelve days. The poor benighted developer--engineers have expectations upon them that participants in this thread are clearly all too willing to abrogate, the term is invalid--will be just fine.
      - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
        Not to contradict you, but your experience does not a rule make, and as with real estate, it's all about location, so, living in Europe, YMMV. Sure it's impossible to be unemployed as a developer one could say by the number of search results from the keyword software in the job portals in my area, but after closer inspection, if you've been around the block a few times, you can easily tell that over 90% of those jobs are shitty micromanaged fake scrum-driven burnout meat grinders where you wouldn't last more than a couple of months. So, the remaining 10% of jobs worth applying for are incredibly picky, and, without a prestigious resume (top companies, top school) you're not getting your foot in the door, even though you might master leet code. Therefore, it took me 6 months on unemployment to find a quality workplace that would take me in and only because I invested in some certs in that time.
- tejtm 7y ago
  > Stop pushing the blame upstairs Why? "follow the money" is a time tested and highly reliable heuristic. I am with you on an individuals responsibility despite embedding within systems designed to provide legal shielding for amoral choices.
- andmarios 7y ago
  Oh cool, so as an engineer I'm expected to know instantly if what I'm working on is legal or not, although most of these cases take years of legal battles or involve huge working bodies from EU, etc. Maybe since engineers are expected to have such good judgement, companies should strip their legal and HR departments and just put related matters for vote in Jira.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- osrec 7y ago
  Sometimes you can be checkmated in your job and personal life. It's not that easy to quit a 150k job and find another when you've got a family and a mortgage. In those situations, your only option is to follow orders. In my experience, it really is the managers who often are to blame for a lot of evil practices. To generalise, I'd say 80% of engineers are rarely evil, but 80% of managers are rarely not evil.
  - eropple 7y ago
    > In those situations, your only option is to follow orders. It is the only option for the morally compromised. The solution is to refuse to be so compromised--and we can do it in this industry. That's not a "for thee but not for me" judgment; I've left a six-figure deal on the table because the client was scum. It requires some grit but is within (almost) all our grasp--and we would be in a better place as an industry (and as people) were this behavior the norm, not the exception.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    Of course I don't want people to have their families starve...but if you have a $150k job you're really very well off notwithstanding the financial obligations you may have taken on that would make it hard to quit. If it's really a problem, then start looking for ways to delay the project or leak the truth. It's important to protect your family, but also to be able to look them in the eye later on.
- CriticalCathed 7y ago
  Good point. Doing your job has never been an excuse for ethical failings.
- esotericn 7y ago
  100% agree. The problem of course is that most people paint themselves into a corner from which it becomes incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to actually act as a free agent (and therefore a moral being). I don't really know how they can live with themselves - I guess I'm just not wired that way - but they do. As far as software devs go specifically.. If you're 21 or whatever, fair enough. If you're 30, in good health, and you're still using this excuse that you just can't survive without always taking the maximally profitable job and sucking up to whatever bossman says, sorry, that's just not right.
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    > If you're 30, in good health, and you're still using this excuse that you just can't survive without always taking the maximally profitable job, sorry, that's just not right. After 30 you're probably looking to settle down, get a house and have kids and unless a generous inheritance is waiting for you, there is no way you can afford kids and a mortgage in any major city without constantly taking the highest salary because other people will, pricing you out.
    - esotericn 7y ago
      > The problem of course is that most people paint themselves into a corner from which it becomes incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to actually act as a free agent (and therefore a moral being). Indeed. I think your example is a bad one because to be honest most people are priced out of that anyway. I don't know anyone who has or expects that life any more. The economy broke. Amongst my "old friends", I'm the only one that could even theoretically afford it, and I've noped out of major metropolitan areas entirely, at least for the time being, because it precisely means either living in a microscopic shoebox or conforming to an economic system that is deeply flawed. Ultimately, you own the consequences of what you're doing. If you don't care about the ethics of what you do because it feeds your family and that's what you want, great. I don't have to respect that; and in fact I reject the premise.
- SmileyRedBall 7y ago
  @skrebbel: “Stop pushing the blame upstairs. If you knowingly build software that hurts people, you share the blame. The job market for programmers has never been better. "My boss told me to do it" is not an excuse.” What planet are you from, my boss told me to do it and I said no, so now I am out of a job and shunned within the industry.
- Diesel555 7y ago
  Agreed. Doesn't work in the military. "Following orders" is not a reason to do something unlawful. You only have to follow lawful orders. IMO the same principle applies here. Knowingly doing something wrong is not okay because you were paid to do it and someone else made the decision.
Santosh83 7y ago
The 'tech titans they serve' bit presumably refers to higher management, so he's not leaving them out...
- jhall1468 7y ago
  I would say it refers to the corporations, encompasses all of the company. Only engineers were called out by title.
kerng 7y ago
This is interesting, I think engineers often take the naive approach and stance when it comes to morals and ethics, like this comment here highlights. Many engineers are not at all familiar with privacy and security laws. When there are hackathons for instance I always wonder about the amount of legal oversight in organizations. Engineers want to build cool things. The Internet made it possible that anyone's small app can have worldwide reach and impact. That impact however also has consequences and responsibilities that the builders can't hide from or transfer to someone else either.
dontbenebby 7y ago
There is a type of person who will always walk right up to the line of what is legal and peer across. Too often these types hold leadership roles in companies. It is important to guard against these types, by ensuring our laws reflect our shared norms to those who will ignore norms unless compelled.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  >It is important to guard against these types Don't doubt for a second that MS knows what it's doing when it adks for this. Facebook as well is doing the same, asking for more regulations. They're trying to capitalize on what is called Regulatory Capture, which will entrench their market power through government force. Sometimes this is more obvious, such as the case in finance where industry leaders smoothly swap roles as both profiteers and technocrats, and sometimes it is less obvious, as is the case now with big tech.
  - dontbenebby 7y ago
    Yes which is why I will also continue to push for strong consumer legislation as a private citizen. I am a resident of a swing state and I vote in primaries.
anovikov 7y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOR38552MJA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOR38552MJA
batmansmk 7y ago
During a bid to offer, I was asked to give a good review of one of the prospects by my N+2. I gave the honest bad review this bidder deserve and left immediately after. No other engineer has wanted to replace me. Later the call to offer got cancelled, my ex-N+2 let go. I understood that if I refuse to do something, there is a substantial possibility that nobody else will do it. If I accept contributing to something malevolent, it makes me complicit. What we know is rare.

throwawaywindev 7y ago

A lot of MSFT management are engineers (including the CEO) so that’s probably not what he meant. Disclosure: I work at MSFT.

mikestew 7y ago
It probably is what he meant, because this is not a casual email but written for publication. If he used the word “engineer”, I will assume he meant “engineer”, and it is not necessary that you speak for management to correct perceived misunderstandings. (NPR could have misstated Smith’s intent, but imma need a citation.)

skrebbel 7y ago

Stop pushing the blame upstairs. If you knowingly build software that hurts people, you share the blame. The job market for programmers has never been better. "My boss told me to do it" is not an excuse. I, for one, hope more engineers involved in fraud (eg VW), privacy breaches (eg Facebook) etc get tried and punished. It might help make programmers realize that yes, your work actually affects real humans and yes, you're partly responsible for getting it right. If your boss makes you write evil crap, quit and get a better job. No need to be all courageous and write an angry blog post, most of us are wimps and that's fine. But that doesn't mean you can't vote with your feet. We need engineers to stop being willing to work anywhere as long as the pay is good and the tech is cool.

pacala 7y ago
The entire adtech industry, which happens to dominates both tech and the economy, is a giant privacy violation machine. Looks like everyone is happy to cash in a fat check, fatter as you move up the totem pole. Après nous le déluge.
jhall1468 7y ago
The moment you open that door you have created the ultimate scapegoat in every corporate decision. Now every engineer is personally responsible for corporate decisions. It's easy when you look at VW and Facebook, but the more nuanced these things get, the more that what your advocating for is that programmers have to be lawyers as well. This horrible precedent and pushes the blame for everything downstairs. Meanwhile, corporate execs have the very corporate shielding you're advocating that engineers don't. Maybe you think they too shouldn't have such protections, but how you can advocate for personal liability for programmers without first implementing personal liability for executives is beyond me. This so incredibly short-sighted.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- skrebbel 7y ago
  I don't advocate that corporate execs have shielding and the engineers don't. Where did you read that? It sounds to me that you're misreading my comment on purpose, to make an us-vs-them argument that I fundamentally disagree with. This isn't about engineers vs bosses, it's about doing the right thing no matter what's on your business card. The argument "if we can't shift the blame up, it'll automatically go down" simply doesn't make sense to me. You, and you alone, can choose to stop building evil shit.
  - jhall1468 7y ago
    I read that by the fact that you only talked about punishing engineers. And I'm not misreading your comment on purpose, trust me I had to read it 4 times just to make sure I wasn't crazy and I was actually reading what I thought I was: someone advocating that bottom of the food chain employees be criminally liable for code they write. You are making an us-vs-them argument, to be sure. Your "us" is consumers and your "them" are employees, rather than corporate executives that make the decisions. I'm not a lawyer. I expect if I'm being asked to do something, it's been vetted by our corporate legal team. I should not be expected to know every aspect of criminal and civil law to protect myself from my employer. What you are suggesting is absurd, but fortunately, I think most would agree with me on that.
0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
>I, for one, hope more engineers involved in fraud (eg VW), privacy breaches (eg Facebook) etc get tried and punished. It might help make programmers realize that yes, your work actually affects real humans and yes, you're partly responsible for getting it right. You can't do this without a lot of ethical backing, supportive law resources, whistleblower protections, and better controls on letting people into the industry. It will be an utter disaster if you don't have those protections.
- blackflame7000 7y ago
  The halting problem shows that it is impossible to verify a program is bug free. Therefore anyone could say that some feature X that harms the user is actually just a bug and you would be hard pressed to beat reasonable doubt Edit: I love downvotes without rebuttal.
  - 0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
    Yeah how do we ever find fault in auto accidents since we don't understand all of physics
    - blackflame7000 7y ago
      Some guy named Newton solved the physics problem you’re referring to. He never got around to computational theory though.
  - pilsetnieks 7y ago
    > anyone could say that some feature X that harms the user is actually just a bug and you would be hard pressed to beat reasonable doubt That would fall under criminal negligence then.
    - blackflame7000 7y ago
      Ahh, so you see, additional regulation is not required.
bcrosby95 7y ago
If you think salaries are high now, just wait until every engineer needs a personal lawyer to review every change request their boss makes of them.
- 0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
  You can train them enough to not be helpless without a lawyer. Doctors don't need one for every medical decision they make. You do need larger support systems to make this work though and that doesn't get built overnight. It certainly does limit new engineer throughput for society because of training times and increase salaries though.
  - salawat 7y ago
    Uh, Doctor example isn't the best seeing as there is an entire industry in existence to handle the possibility that a doctor in the course of doing their job may end up causing harm, unintentional or not. I.e. malpractice insurance. I find this push of responsibility to the engineers encouraging. Finally may come the legislative framework through which I can shoot down an employer's design knowing that in all odds anyone else with a license at stake won't cave to mere financial coercion.
    - 0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
      We would need a similar-in-principle industry for engineers if they are legally and professionally responsible for code. It would likely be smaller and cheaper since most of us are not responsible for lives though. You definitely wouldn't need a lawyer on retainer.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - bcrosby95 7y ago
        If you work at a place like Facebook or Google it would probably be more expensive. You would be looking at liabilities in the hundreds of millions for a single bug.
tluyben2 7y ago
Not very realistic for people who need to put food on the table and where the evil vs non evil is not that clear. Especially if you work on a very small cog in the machine, which most engineers do ofcourse. Where do you draw the line? Maybe your company makes software that is nice but it is sold to companies using it for evil? I think this is too vague and not solvable by engineers unless in clear cut cases like you mention; not many of those really. There are not infinite jobs either; most companies will, at some stage, do things that you might consider evil. It is generally management that should be blamed; they have the oversight and make decisions about client base etc. In rare cases where an engineer knew they were wrong very clearly but still did it, then sure, punishment is ok. Edit; I see you are from Eindhoven; I was born close to there and studied at the TUE under Dijkstra pupils. We had a little group at the time that believed in Dijkstra like thinking; software has to be proven correct and we added that it has to be ethical. It was an idea to somehow make software dev a gild. Then we grew up and saw nothing like that is possible unless you want the world to grind to a halt. The Netherlands would be a likely candidate for this kind of experiment though; you cannot really die of poverty there unless mentally ill, so it is easier to ‘just quit’ if you think your boss went satan on you.
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  >>Not very realistic for people who need to put food on the table and where the evil vs non evil is not that clear. Evil vs. non-evil being not that clear is not a problem. That's why we have the court system: to sort those types of things out. As for "needing to put food on the table", how far are you willing to take that logic? It seems you could use it to justify virtually any behavior, as long as you get paid doing it.
  - andreilys 7y ago
    I don’t think the court system is a panacea for solving moral dilemmas. Especially in tech where things move much quicker than our laws can keep up with.
  - Supermancho 7y ago
    > Evil vs. non-evil being not that clear is not a problem. Evil isnt the same as immoral, excepting a subjective interpretation of equivalence. Whats worse is a lack of standardization (or even distinction) between terminology to describe behaviors (eg pernicious, evil, immoral, corrupt, dangerous, et al). What is evil to you is certainly not the same as what is evil to me...much less how a legal doctrine is worded. It is a HUGE problem that people dont agree on what constitutes undesired action.
gautamdivgi 7y ago
>>> Stop pushing the blame upstairs. If you knowingly build software that hurts people, you share the blame. The job market for programmers has never been better. "My boss told me to do it" is not an excuse. It is an excuse. If my livelihood depends on it, my children's health insurance depends on it (especially if you have kids that need continuous care), my kids university tuition depends on it, etc, etc... So, personally that's a very narrow view to take. Unless there is a support system that can maintain comparable quality of life for engineers who speak up and quit it's not going to happen. I know I wouldn't care unless someone really made it worth my while to do so.
- navigatesol 7y ago
  >I know I wouldn't care unless someone really made it worth my while to do so. This mentality is appalling.
- tfehring 7y ago
  Your and your children’s well being depend on your having a job. They don’t depend strictly on your current job. Approximately all engineers at big tech companies could put in their 2 week’s notice on Monday and find another job above the 95th salary percentile during that 2 week period.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    That is a very optimistic view about how easy it is for the average engineer (many of whom are not even in software) to land a new job. Especially one that doesn't require them to move or otherwise make significant changes.
    - tfehring 7y ago
      My comment referred to engineers at big tech companies, not the average engineer more generally. The job market is still really strong for engineers across the board, not just SWE. Experience at big tech companies still looks great on a resume, and those companies tend to be geographically concentrated in areas with lots of other tech companies. To be clear, those engineers' quality of life may be dependent on working at big tech companies. But their ability to make a living and support their families is not. They have made the decision to contribute to abuses of human rights in exchange for a larger salary (and prestige, among other factors), and at least in my eyes, they're just as responsible for the consequences of that decision as their managers are.
traderjane 7y ago
Is the fast food worker responsible for thinking about American dietary health? Is the logger responsible for thinking about ecological health? Is the coal miner responsible for thinking about clean air? In some ways the fast food worker is even more directly responsible for the end-product. Burgers require regional labor; software can be made by somebody in Australia or China.
Iolaum 7y ago
At Greece we have a saying. The fish smells from the head. While engineers share some of the blame if their corp does something evil/unlawful putting them on the spotlight instead of the people actually making the decisions is disingenuous.
kgwxd 7y ago
100 harmless modules can be built by 100 developers and be easily pieced together to form something devious. Also, a program can be harmless and even useful if used for personal/internal purposes but be pure evil when locked down and distributed.
TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
I’m ok with prosecuting software developers individually if we first require them to adhere to a set of standards in a similar fashion to real engineers.
- coding123 7y ago
  It is interesting, but isn't the software organization, in general, the responsible party? If that software company and the sole developer are the same person (a one man company) then you already have that. There's no software equivalent of a software engineer coming to someone's house to fix the code in an Alexa controlled light bulb - the responsible party is the lightbulb company.
  - nickpsecurity 7y ago
    Mostly true. I will note exceptions. There's some companies like Altran Praxis that warranty their high-quality software. Far as visits, folks with AS/400's told me IBM techs would occasinally show up to do maintenance on the systems before they fully broke. I think the managed appliances are the closest thing to your analogy, though.
timwaagh 7y ago
Actually 'my boss told me to build it' is an excuse. if you dont build it, you breach contract. you get fired or possibly sued for damages or breach of contract (as a contractor or external consultant). The job market isn't exactly great for recently fired engineers either. Nobody is above the law, and it is more than likely that some unlucky 'git-blamed' junior is going to face such a case some day instead of the boss who ordered it. But i hope in that case a judge will take the migitating circumstances into account.
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  Agreed. I dislike how every time we push for the "hot market for programmers" meme that only exists in the SV-like bubbles. Everywhere else around the world, it's just a regular job people do to put food on the table. Should we boycott people who work in the defense industry as well?
  - eropple 7y ago
    I've never lived in Silicon Valley. And I've been fired from jobs before. The longest I was ever unemployed not of my own volition was twelve days. The poor benighted developer--engineers have expectations upon them that participants in this thread are clearly all too willing to abrogate, the term is invalid--will be just fine.
    - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
      Not to contradict you, but your experience does not a rule make, and as with real estate, it's all about location, so, living in Europe, YMMV. Sure it's impossible to be unemployed as a developer one could say by the number of search results from the keyword software in the job portals in my area, but after closer inspection, if you've been around the block a few times, you can easily tell that over 90% of those jobs are shitty micromanaged fake scrum-driven burnout meat grinders where you wouldn't last more than a couple of months. So, the remaining 10% of jobs worth applying for are incredibly picky, and, without a prestigious resume (top companies, top school) you're not getting your foot in the door, even though you might master leet code. Therefore, it took me 6 months on unemployment to find a quality workplace that would take me in and only because I invested in some certs in that time.
tejtm 7y ago
> Stop pushing the blame upstairs Why? "follow the money" is a time tested and highly reliable heuristic. I am with you on an individuals responsibility despite embedding within systems designed to provide legal shielding for amoral choices.
andmarios 7y ago
Oh cool, so as an engineer I'm expected to know instantly if what I'm working on is legal or not, although most of these cases take years of legal battles or involve huge working bodies from EU, etc. Maybe since engineers are expected to have such good judgement, companies should strip their legal and HR departments and just put related matters for vote in Jira.
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osrec 7y ago
Sometimes you can be checkmated in your job and personal life. It's not that easy to quit a 150k job and find another when you've got a family and a mortgage. In those situations, your only option is to follow orders. In my experience, it really is the managers who often are to blame for a lot of evil practices. To generalise, I'd say 80% of engineers are rarely evil, but 80% of managers are rarely not evil.
- eropple 7y ago
  > In those situations, your only option is to follow orders. It is the only option for the morally compromised. The solution is to refuse to be so compromised--and we can do it in this industry. That's not a "for thee but not for me" judgment; I've left a six-figure deal on the table because the client was scum. It requires some grit but is within (almost) all our grasp--and we would be in a better place as an industry (and as people) were this behavior the norm, not the exception.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Of course I don't want people to have their families starve...but if you have a $150k job you're really very well off notwithstanding the financial obligations you may have taken on that would make it hard to quit. If it's really a problem, then start looking for ways to delay the project or leak the truth. It's important to protect your family, but also to be able to look them in the eye later on.
CriticalCathed 7y ago
Good point. Doing your job has never been an excuse for ethical failings.
esotericn 7y ago
100% agree. The problem of course is that most people paint themselves into a corner from which it becomes incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to actually act as a free agent (and therefore a moral being). I don't really know how they can live with themselves - I guess I'm just not wired that way - but they do. As far as software devs go specifically.. If you're 21 or whatever, fair enough. If you're 30, in good health, and you're still using this excuse that you just can't survive without always taking the maximally profitable job and sucking up to whatever bossman says, sorry, that's just not right.
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  > If you're 30, in good health, and you're still using this excuse that you just can't survive without always taking the maximally profitable job, sorry, that's just not right. After 30 you're probably looking to settle down, get a house and have kids and unless a generous inheritance is waiting for you, there is no way you can afford kids and a mortgage in any major city without constantly taking the highest salary because other people will, pricing you out.
  - esotericn 7y ago
    > The problem of course is that most people paint themselves into a corner from which it becomes incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to actually act as a free agent (and therefore a moral being). Indeed. I think your example is a bad one because to be honest most people are priced out of that anyway. I don't know anyone who has or expects that life any more. The economy broke. Amongst my "old friends", I'm the only one that could even theoretically afford it, and I've noped out of major metropolitan areas entirely, at least for the time being, because it precisely means either living in a microscopic shoebox or conforming to an economic system that is deeply flawed. Ultimately, you own the consequences of what you're doing. If you don't care about the ethics of what you do because it feeds your family and that's what you want, great. I don't have to respect that; and in fact I reject the premise.
SmileyRedBall 7y ago
@skrebbel: “Stop pushing the blame upstairs. If you knowingly build software that hurts people, you share the blame. The job market for programmers has never been better. "My boss told me to do it" is not an excuse.” What planet are you from, my boss told me to do it and I said no, so now I am out of a job and shunned within the industry.
Diesel555 7y ago
Agreed. Doesn't work in the military. "Following orders" is not a reason to do something unlawful. You only have to follow lawful orders. IMO the same principle applies here. Knowingly doing something wrong is not okay because you were paid to do it and someone else made the decision.

Santosh83 7y ago

The 'tech titans they serve' bit presumably refers to higher management, so he's not leaving them out...

jhall1468 7y ago
I would say it refers to the corporations, encompasses all of the company. Only engineers were called out by title.

kerng 7y ago

This is interesting, I think engineers often take the naive approach and stance when it comes to morals and ethics, like this comment here highlights. Many engineers are not at all familiar with privacy and security laws. When there are hackathons for instance I always wonder about the amount of legal oversight in organizations. Engineers want to build cool things. The Internet made it possible that anyone's small app can have worldwide reach and impact. That impact however also has consequences and responsibilities that the builders can't hide from or transfer to someone else either.

dontbenebby 7y ago

There is a type of person who will always walk right up to the line of what is legal and peer across. Too often these types hold leadership roles in companies. It is important to guard against these types, by ensuring our laws reflect our shared norms to those who will ignore norms unless compelled.

wallace_f 7y ago
>It is important to guard against these types Don't doubt for a second that MS knows what it's doing when it adks for this. Facebook as well is doing the same, asking for more regulations. They're trying to capitalize on what is called Regulatory Capture, which will entrench their market power through government force. Sometimes this is more obvious, such as the case in finance where industry leaders smoothly swap roles as both profiteers and technocrats, and sometimes it is less obvious, as is the case now with big tech.
- dontbenebby 7y ago
  Yes which is why I will also continue to push for strong consumer legislation as a private citizen. I am a resident of a swing state and I vote in primaries.

anovikov 7y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOR38552MJA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOR38552MJA

batmansmk 7y ago

During a bid to offer, I was asked to give a good review of one of the prospects by my N+2. I gave the honest bad review this bidder deserve and left immediately after. No other engineer has wanted to replace me. Later the call to offer got cancelled, my ex-N+2 let go. I understood that if I refuse to do something, there is a substantial possibility that nobody else will do it. If I accept contributing to something malevolent, it makes me complicit. What we know is rare.