Well, yeeeeees... If management, whose job it is to swallow their pride when given a nasty surprise like this, isn't up to the task. I'm sure that OP could, wit

Well, yeeeeees... If management, whose job it is to swallow their pride when given a nasty surprise like this, isn't up to the task. I'm sure that OP could, with great political skill and subtlety, have had a very decent shot at turning this thing around. But what's their incentive? They're probably paid as a regular IC, and saving a double-digit million dollar fiasco like this from disaster is super annoying and unrewarding work! You're effectively doing the job of five managers and not even getting their salary -- let alone a percentage of the disaster you're averting! This kind of political-technical skill combination can probably be fruitfully applied in a place that properly rewards the contributor! I very much agree that this thing could have been handled better, when seen externally. But I'm also pretty sure it wasn't in OP's personal interest to do so! That's a very stupid state of affairs, of course, but I guess that might be par for the course of a failed $60 million project.