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The only engineers with real power are the ones that own the company. And even then, they can still be out-maneuvered by politically astute executives. Engine

The only engineers with real power are the ones that own the company. And even then, they can still be out-maneuvered by politically astute executives. Engineers are almost never to blame in these situations, even if they are the direct cause of an issue. There's usually so many of them that someone catches problems. But they are powerless to do much more than send a strongly worded email to their management. Until C-suites and board members are held personally liable for tragedies like this, I doubt much will ever change. There's no real incentive to fix problems, when it costs too much money because the worst thing that will happen is, a few years down the road, there might be a Congressional inquiry and a modest fine. Of course, any engineer whose malfeasance costs the company even 0.001% of that fine will find themselves in jail at the behest of company leadership, even if no lives were lost or any measurable damage was done to the company..

bumby 6y ago
>Engineers are almost never to blame in these situations I strongly disagree with this. Engineering is a profession of public trust, even if operating under an industrial exemption to circumnavigate licensure. We need to hold ourselves accountable to those standards or else it risks becoming a vocation devoid of responsibility and lacking accountability similar to the C-suite positions that people rail against in this thread. I don't think society would cut a doctor or lawyer slack for 'just doing as they're told' and I think engineers are in the same area of public trust. Good organizations should have dissenting opinion processes. The advantage is that it gives a way to hold management accountable (e.g., they must formally acknowledge that risk). Sure, using that process may come with professional risk, but that should come with the territory of a position of public trust.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  No engineer had the power to veto this move by the company, just like no engineer had veto power over the Challenger launch or any of the other numerous tragedies we all discuss in our ethics classes. Attempts were made to prevent the tragedies, but nobody in charge listened. The fault lies with the person who has final authority over the decision. If I make a mistake, which is discovered, as long as I attempt to correct the problem, I'm absolved of fault. A miscalculation is an accident. Knowingly deploying a faulty device due miscalculation is malfeasance. I may have made the calculation, but I never made the decision to let it kill people.
  - bumby 6y ago
    I think where we disagree is the level of responsibility for "final authority". If an engineer knowingly designs a failure, they should be held responsible as should the management. I don't think those two responsibilities of engineers and management are mutually exclusive. I don't know about how NASA handled dissenting opinions in the Challenger days but my understanding is they have grown into more of a risk-informed decision making culture. I do think they have engineers who can stop work and force management to formally accept that risk nowadays. I don't know if Boeing has similar processes. This isn't a miscalculation scenario. This is knowingly not following their own processes. At least according the the hazard analysis reported by the Seattle times, their own processes said there should have been a default redundant sensor. Not as optional equipment, but as the default configuration. The engineer may not have the final say but they do have a responsibility to drive that risk decision. If they know they are doing something dangerous or unethical, in my (perhaps unpopular) opinion they have a responsibility to voice that or leave. I say that as somebody who has been pressured in these types of decisions in an aerospace domain. Challenger was somewhat different. Challenger was from a lack of temperature data, meaning they didn't have a good probabilistic rationale for either GO/NOGO decision. In hindsight, the safe bet was to wait for conditions that fell within the known data. As I understand the Boeing case, they identified the hazard but didn't follow their own procedures to mitigate it. That isn't really the same case of an "known unknown" but rather an "known known" that they didn't mitigate. I do think the engineers are culpable to a certain extent there. Edit: >I may have made the calculation, but I never made the decision to let it kill people. I think this may go along with our differing opinions on the standards of the profession. In my view, there is a certain level of expected competence one should be held accountable for. That’s why doctors can be sued for negligence even if it was an “honest mistake”
    - outworlder 6y ago
      > If they know they are doing something dangerous or unethical, in my (perhaps unpopular) opinion they have a responsibility to voice that or leave. How do you know they didn't? They will keep leaving and management will keep firing people until such a time they get people that will go with their decision. Management has final say. > Challenger was from a lack of temperature data No, they had data alright. They had data from previous flights showing O-ring degradation. There were two, and at least one flight the seal got broken on the first O-ring completely and started on the second. NASA's own procedures would not allow launch if they were routinely exceeding their safety margins, so those got changed. On the day of the fateful launch, engineers responsible for the boosters raised concerns due to the low temperatures. Those were escalated to a very high level in NASA. They were ultimately overruled.
- vezycash 6y ago
  "Boisjoly and four other engineers tried desperately to convince management that the launch should be scrubbed. They warned that the cold would cause rubber o-rings to become brittle and fail, allowing hot gases to leak at the joints. Morton Thiokol and NASA managers dismissed the arguments, and decided to go ahead with the launch. The next day, Challenger lifted off from its pad at Kennedy Space Center. At first, the launch appeared normal, but 73 seconds into flight the shuttle exploded, sending fragments arcing across the bright Florida sky. In view of a horrified public, including thousands of schoolchildren watching a live broadcast, seven astronauts plummeted to their deaths in the Atlantic ocean." You might want to read the full article: https://whistleblowing.us/2012/02/remembering-roger-m-boisjoly-challenger-disaster-whistleblower-1938-2012/ https://whistleblowing.us/2012/02/remembering-roger-m-boisjo... As for Congress blaming "the engineers." Virtually all American whistle blowers lose their jobs and are placed on a banned list. They are branded traitors and conveniently become sexual predators, rapists and pedophiles. From the ensuing manhunt, you'd think the whistle blower's the head of a terrorist organization. It's straight to prison if they are caught. And a constant looking over their shoulders if they escape the country. But "management", the guys who actually did something illegal? Life goes on uninterrupted,... retire and become an amazon director. Knowing the risk involved, how can anyone expect any rational engineer to leak stuff? If not a single Boeing executive goes to prison for this, then this exercise is a sham, looking for helpless scapegoats to salvage the company's reputation and reduce its loss of plane orders.
  - bumby 6y ago
    >Knowing the risk involved, how can anyone expect any rational engineer to leak stuff? Because that is the ethical mandate of the profession. “Profession” as in the root of the word to profess a vow. That consideration doesn’t come with the caveat of “as long as it’s convenient to your career.” I get that it’s not easy. I just don’t like how people will give themselves ethical loopholes in a professional realm but not a personal one. As I stated in a different comment, I don’t think Challenger is the same as this Boeing case. In any event, NASA has instituted procedures to try an empower engineers to hold managers accountable
    - 6y ago
- ouid 6y ago
  public trust is the same as the honor system is the same as no system.
  - bumby 6y ago
    It depends. I think it can be driven informally or formally. Do you think other public trust professions (doctors, lawyers, judges) are on equally weak foundations? Informally, you have the onus to create a culture of accountability and each individual has the responsibility to uphold it. One way you do the opposite is for people to claim "engineers are almost never to blame". Maybe this is a third rail to bring up at this moment, but you can see how much culture matters when bad policing surfaces. Would you say "Beat cops can't be blamed, it's only the chief's fault"? Formally, you can lean on licensure requirements. Requiring an official "approval" from a licensed engineer (and the accountability that goes with it) helps ensure the public trust oath isn't just a rubber stamp.

bumby 6y ago

>Engineers are almost never to blame in these situations I strongly disagree with this. Engineering is a profession of public trust, even if operating under an industrial exemption to circumnavigate licensure. We need to hold ourselves accountable to those standards or else it risks becoming a vocation devoid of responsibility and lacking accountability similar to the C-suite positions that people rail against in this thread. I don't think society would cut a doctor or lawyer slack for 'just doing as they're told' and I think engineers are in the same area of public trust. Good organizations should have dissenting opinion processes. The advantage is that it gives a way to hold management accountable (e.g., they must formally acknowledge that risk). Sure, using that process may come with professional risk, but that should come with the territory of a position of public trust.

mywittyname 6y ago
No engineer had the power to veto this move by the company, just like no engineer had veto power over the Challenger launch or any of the other numerous tragedies we all discuss in our ethics classes. Attempts were made to prevent the tragedies, but nobody in charge listened. The fault lies with the person who has final authority over the decision. If I make a mistake, which is discovered, as long as I attempt to correct the problem, I'm absolved of fault. A miscalculation is an accident. Knowingly deploying a faulty device due miscalculation is malfeasance. I may have made the calculation, but I never made the decision to let it kill people.
- bumby 6y ago
  I think where we disagree is the level of responsibility for "final authority". If an engineer knowingly designs a failure, they should be held responsible as should the management. I don't think those two responsibilities of engineers and management are mutually exclusive. I don't know about how NASA handled dissenting opinions in the Challenger days but my understanding is they have grown into more of a risk-informed decision making culture. I do think they have engineers who can stop work and force management to formally accept that risk nowadays. I don't know if Boeing has similar processes. This isn't a miscalculation scenario. This is knowingly not following their own processes. At least according the the hazard analysis reported by the Seattle times, their own processes said there should have been a default redundant sensor. Not as optional equipment, but as the default configuration. The engineer may not have the final say but they do have a responsibility to drive that risk decision. If they know they are doing something dangerous or unethical, in my (perhaps unpopular) opinion they have a responsibility to voice that or leave. I say that as somebody who has been pressured in these types of decisions in an aerospace domain. Challenger was somewhat different. Challenger was from a lack of temperature data, meaning they didn't have a good probabilistic rationale for either GO/NOGO decision. In hindsight, the safe bet was to wait for conditions that fell within the known data. As I understand the Boeing case, they identified the hazard but didn't follow their own procedures to mitigate it. That isn't really the same case of an "known unknown" but rather an "known known" that they didn't mitigate. I do think the engineers are culpable to a certain extent there. Edit: >I may have made the calculation, but I never made the decision to let it kill people. I think this may go along with our differing opinions on the standards of the profession. In my view, there is a certain level of expected competence one should be held accountable for. That’s why doctors can be sued for negligence even if it was an “honest mistake”
  - outworlder 6y ago
    > If they know they are doing something dangerous or unethical, in my (perhaps unpopular) opinion they have a responsibility to voice that or leave. How do you know they didn't? They will keep leaving and management will keep firing people until such a time they get people that will go with their decision. Management has final say. > Challenger was from a lack of temperature data No, they had data alright. They had data from previous flights showing O-ring degradation. There were two, and at least one flight the seal got broken on the first O-ring completely and started on the second. NASA's own procedures would not allow launch if they were routinely exceeding their safety margins, so those got changed. On the day of the fateful launch, engineers responsible for the boosters raised concerns due to the low temperatures. Those were escalated to a very high level in NASA. They were ultimately overruled.
vezycash 6y ago
"Boisjoly and four other engineers tried desperately to convince management that the launch should be scrubbed. They warned that the cold would cause rubber o-rings to become brittle and fail, allowing hot gases to leak at the joints. Morton Thiokol and NASA managers dismissed the arguments, and decided to go ahead with the launch. The next day, Challenger lifted off from its pad at Kennedy Space Center. At first, the launch appeared normal, but 73 seconds into flight the shuttle exploded, sending fragments arcing across the bright Florida sky. In view of a horrified public, including thousands of schoolchildren watching a live broadcast, seven astronauts plummeted to their deaths in the Atlantic ocean." You might want to read the full article: https://whistleblowing.us/2012/02/remembering-roger-m-boisjoly-challenger-disaster-whistleblower-1938-2012/ https://whistleblowing.us/2012/02/remembering-roger-m-boisjo... As for Congress blaming "the engineers." Virtually all American whistle blowers lose their jobs and are placed on a banned list. They are branded traitors and conveniently become sexual predators, rapists and pedophiles. From the ensuing manhunt, you'd think the whistle blower's the head of a terrorist organization. It's straight to prison if they are caught. And a constant looking over their shoulders if they escape the country. But "management", the guys who actually did something illegal? Life goes on uninterrupted,... retire and become an amazon director. Knowing the risk involved, how can anyone expect any rational engineer to leak stuff? If not a single Boeing executive goes to prison for this, then this exercise is a sham, looking for helpless scapegoats to salvage the company's reputation and reduce its loss of plane orders.
- bumby 6y ago
  >Knowing the risk involved, how can anyone expect any rational engineer to leak stuff? Because that is the ethical mandate of the profession. “Profession” as in the root of the word to profess a vow. That consideration doesn’t come with the caveat of “as long as it’s convenient to your career.” I get that it’s not easy. I just don’t like how people will give themselves ethical loopholes in a professional realm but not a personal one. As I stated in a different comment, I don’t think Challenger is the same as this Boeing case. In any event, NASA has instituted procedures to try an empower engineers to hold managers accountable
  - 6y ago
ouid 6y ago
public trust is the same as the honor system is the same as no system.
- bumby 6y ago
  It depends. I think it can be driven informally or formally. Do you think other public trust professions (doctors, lawyers, judges) are on equally weak foundations? Informally, you have the onus to create a culture of accountability and each individual has the responsibility to uphold it. One way you do the opposite is for people to claim "engineers are almost never to blame". Maybe this is a third rail to bring up at this moment, but you can see how much culture matters when bad policing surfaces. Would you say "Beat cops can't be blamed, it's only the chief's fault"? Formally, you can lean on licensure requirements. Requiring an official "approval" from a licensed engineer (and the accountability that goes with it) helps ensure the public trust oath isn't just a rubber stamp.