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You know, I sort of agree with this article while completely disagreeing with it. The article says: > You want software engineers to be accountable for their

You know, I sort of agree with this article while completely disagreeing with it. The article says: > You want software engineers to be accountable for their code, then give them the respect they deserve. The problem is, respect is something that's taken as much as its something given. We can't even decide for ourselves if software is worthy of respect. Can anyone learn to code from a coding bootcamp, where getting a job is all that matters? Or is it a discipline that takes years to master, where mistakes can and will bring down the global economy? Are we glorified plumbers, or are we mathematicians and civil engineers combined? If you see yourself as a code monkey, of course you can't be "held responsible" for the results of your work. Coding bootcamps don't teach infosec. Its up to your company to set good practices and your job is just to follow them. Its only if you personally want to take your role in society seriously that it makes sense to consider not just your job, but the effect your job has on the wider world. I'm personally of the opinion that this mindset is almost always long term positive for your career. Its less "blame the dev for hitting deploy" and more "I'm the dev. No, I won't hit deploy on that code in the state its in." I didn't go to a coding bootcamp. I went to university. There they forced all of us engineering & CS students to do an ethics course - which was actually fantastic. There they taught us about the Therac-25: a computer controlled radiation machine which killed a bunch of people. The engineers on the ground knew that it needed more testing, but the company insisted it was fine and pushed it out the door. Here's the question: If you were one of those engineers, what would you do? If you knew, or suspected, that a bug in your code could bring down 911 services and hospitals, ground planes or give people a lethal dose of radiation, do you really trust your manager to make the engineering call? Do you think the CEO understands the risk that is being taken by hitting deploy? Of course, if we're playing the blame game, the blame ultimately the blame falls on the CEO of the company or something. But forget the blame game. You won't be fired. You won't lose your cushy job. The question is: Who do you want to be in situations like this? Think about this question now. You won't have time in the moment when your boss tells you to hit deploy, and you have second thoughts. Me? I want to be someone who would say no.

skwee357 2y ago
I agree. But in order to be the "person who would say no", the industry needs to understand that your opinion and expertise--matter. It could be a cultural shift, or a gate-keeping style shift where we protect the title "Engineer", like they do in some professions in some countries. But given the current state, you can't on one hand blame the developers, and on the other hand treat them like spoiled kids who make too much money and in any way AI can replace most of them. It doesn't work this way. A Structural Engineer bears the responsibility because he has the authority, and respect to his knowledge, to refuse to sign off a broken design. This is not the case in software engineering.
- mwcampbell 2y ago
  > treat them like spoiled kids To what extent is this because we act like spoiled kids? I really do mean "we" here; I probably have acted like that sometimes. I wonder if we, the post-microcomputer generations, are messed up to some extent because we started programming as a fun distraction from the work we were supposed to be doing, rather than learning programming as a serious job from the beginning like our predecessors who learned on mainframes or minicomputers in college.
- josephg 2y ago
  Right. This is my point exactly. It’s hard to have it both ways. We can’t both carry the burden of responsibility for society, and expect truck drivers to learn programming in a 12 week bootcamp. It’s hard to expect programmers to have rigor in our work if we hire programmers who are self taught. And that’s a bitter pill to swallow, because lots of self taught software engineers are really good. But we don’t need to boil the ocean for things to improve. You personally can still decide you don’t want to make software that harms society. You personally can push back against your company if they want you to sell your users data. Nobody really knows how much they should respect your opinions and skills, so they’ll try things on. If you don’t respect yourself, nobody else will either.
intelVISA 2y ago
Imo the root issue is that SWE is such a young profession: it hasn't had time to find a real footing, it's probably somewhere in the barber surgeon era about now. Therefore the current identity crisis: the avg SWE is expected to be skilled and autonomous, but also report to daily standups and use mythical "story points" to estimate Very Serious Projects. I would say devs are neither plumbers nor engineers but managers (of automation), but to recognize this is not Agile so instead we'll treat them as cheap cogs and wonder why the best escape to run their own shop where they can recapture the responsibilities and compensation eroded by bloat and grifters. This is why the corp narrative is so wishful toward AI replacing engineers: an abstract magic box that prints money with no concept of accountability, copyright, liability is a dream for CEOs.

skwee357 2y ago

I agree. But in order to be the "person who would say no", the industry needs to understand that your opinion and expertise--matter. It could be a cultural shift, or a gate-keeping style shift where we protect the title "Engineer", like they do in some professions in some countries. But given the current state, you can't on one hand blame the developers, and on the other hand treat them like spoiled kids who make too much money and in any way AI can replace most of them. It doesn't work this way. A Structural Engineer bears the responsibility because he has the authority, and respect to his knowledge, to refuse to sign off a broken design. This is not the case in software engineering.

mwcampbell 2y ago
> treat them like spoiled kids To what extent is this because we act like spoiled kids? I really do mean "we" here; I probably have acted like that sometimes. I wonder if we, the post-microcomputer generations, are messed up to some extent because we started programming as a fun distraction from the work we were supposed to be doing, rather than learning programming as a serious job from the beginning like our predecessors who learned on mainframes or minicomputers in college.
josephg 2y ago
Right. This is my point exactly. It’s hard to have it both ways. We can’t both carry the burden of responsibility for society, and expect truck drivers to learn programming in a 12 week bootcamp. It’s hard to expect programmers to have rigor in our work if we hire programmers who are self taught. And that’s a bitter pill to swallow, because lots of self taught software engineers are really good. But we don’t need to boil the ocean for things to improve. You personally can still decide you don’t want to make software that harms society. You personally can push back against your company if they want you to sell your users data. Nobody really knows how much they should respect your opinions and skills, so they’ll try things on. If you don’t respect yourself, nobody else will either.

intelVISA 2y ago

Imo the root issue is that SWE is such a young profession: it hasn't had time to find a real footing, it's probably somewhere in the barber surgeon era about now. Therefore the current identity crisis: the avg SWE is expected to be skilled and autonomous, but also report to daily standups and use mythical "story points" to estimate Very Serious Projects. I would say devs are neither plumbers nor engineers but managers (of automation), but to recognize this is not Agile so instead we'll treat them as cheap cogs and wonder why the best escape to run their own shop where they can recapture the responsibilities and compensation eroded by bloat and grifters. This is why the corp narrative is so wishful toward AI replacing engineers: an abstract magic box that prints money with no concept of accountability, copyright, liability is a dream for CEOs.