You can choose to interpret my comment as being about corporations if you like; however, I was talking about individual engineers. It is perfectly feasible for

You can choose to interpret my comment as being about corporations if you like; however, I was talking about individual engineers. It is perfectly feasible for a professional oath/code-of-ethics to work, as it does in other industries. It doesn't mean you will never get a bad actor, but it adds a layer of protection to any engineer. For example, you could imagine that once the code-of-ethics is standardised: * Organisations that employ software engineers will feel obliged to publicly follow it (like they all have to have public policies around things like modern slavery, etc.) * They would also be pressured to display it on job ads. Because why would an engineer want to work somewhere that doesn't follow the industry code-of-ethics. * Engineers have something to point at as a reference to what is, and what is not, ethical. Allowing them to not appear be the only voice in an organisation who can see harm being done. * It could well enable a union of software engineers take industrial action if the code of ethics is being broken. Which would be a PR disaster for any corporation. At the extreme end, you could possibly see a future where engineers are 'struck off' of the professional body representing us (for unethical practice). The only downside I see is that ethics and morals are mutable, so it'd be pretty hard to nail down a concrete set of ethics that are effective without overstepping. There are however plenty of smart people in this industry, so it shouldn't be beyond us to work it out.