I think you're sort of misunderstanding the role of QA. You think that QA is a liability shield, but that is only a side effect of the work that they actually

I think you're sort of misunderstanding the role of QA. You think that QA is a liability shield, but that is only a side effect of the work that they actually do. The task of QA is exactly that: an entity that tries to assure that the quality is up to some standard. Even in favourable conditions mistakes happen, so how do you make sure as a company that not 1 in every 100 product are faulty and tarnishes the good reputation that your company has spent so much time and money on to build? You hire a QA to make sure problems get caught before delivery. But if all humans make mistakes, and QA is human, how do you make sure that the QA doesn't make a mistake? A never ending chain of QAs expecting each other? No of course not. One thing that helps with reducing errors is to have a rigid protocol that is followed to the letter everytime. Pilots, for example, have a preflight checklist that they have to run every time they operate the plane. The rigid protocol of QA teams is therefore an essential part of their jobs. Although from your standpoint as a developer it might seem strange that QA is 'preventing' you from fixing a bug, it is actually very reasonable. Especially since you work in the defence industry, I hope you understand that it is very important that the software that operates radars, planes, missiles, bombs, etc is working exactly as expected. Understandably there is a great deal of effort made to assure that when those things are needed they work exactly to spec. So in your example it is probably very reasonable that any change you make needs to go through some rigorous process. The fact that it 'only' was about test equipment, doesn't matter because test equipment is just as, if not more important as the stuff it tests. The reason why QA has the side-effect of being a 'liability shield' is that it gives companies the ability to argue (and proof) after the fact that the company did their due diligence in making sure that the product was to spec. Especially certification is basically to get an external organisation to approve your QA. In that case if you get sued you can rightfully claim that you did everything that was legally asked of you, and if there is blame, then it is the certifying company using insufficient standards.