Comment by hinkley
7 hours ago
All engineers know to be on the lookout for executives who are indirectly asking them to break the law to raise the quarterly profits.
The end goal is to take the engineers out of the loop, or leave them in a position where they are unable to complain.
This is going to all end in high crimes.
Very strange worldview you have there, where engineers are somehow the conscience of the world, holding back greedy managers from breaking the law. Assessing whether a feature is legal isn't something an engineer can or should do.
You're arguing for diffusion of responsibility, and we've seen it leading to outcomes that screw the whole society.
Engineers, as everyone involved, should definitely assess whether what they're doing is legal or even ethical. Not everyone has a choice, or the luxury to stand for their principles, but that's a matter of means, there needs to be a will in the first place.
Absolutely. I'm not sure where this idea comes from, that engineers should be compliant, neutral "implementers" who should just turn off their conscience and implement whatever pops up on their JIRA list without any kind of assessment or objections on ethical or legal grounds. That's not what people in a serious profession do. It's also so weird to hear this idea from engineers themselves! Like, are you really advocating to remove your own agency over your work??
Hmm, engineers are expected to know what is legal and not.
Would you say the same about any other engineering discipline? Those with actual qualification standards?
Most engineers are required to explicitly take responsibility for the things they sign off, up to and including prison for sufficiently bad cases. Software “engineering” is the exception.