The only one who can have responsibility for anything is the one who has the authority. So long as developers are in a position of "just get it done or you're fired" as well as being outsourced to save costs, they have no authority in this and therefor zero responsibility. If management "doesn't know what we do" and doesn't want to have the responsibility then they have to give us the authority to say "no, this is not going to be done tomorrow and we're not cutting any corners".
> The only one who can have responsibility for anything is the one who has the authority
So if a cop gets an adresse wrong and is a bit too trigger happy and ends up killing innoscent people. Its their chief of police who should go to jail because they told them to go arrest a suspect? Unless we change the system to allow cops to just do whatever they want whenever with not leadership?
The idea that just because a programmer doesn’t have complete autonomy over their work that they suddenly become unaccountable for negligence and errors is ridicules.
Who actually works in a job like that? Do you seriously think you’re a slave to your boss, with no personal agency? Do you think your employer wants you to be feckless? Do you think that’s good for your career?
Your capacity to take responsibility is the differentiating factor between junior and senior engineers. Learn to step up. If nothing else, your pay check in 10 years time will thank you.
Incentives do matters. It should be pretty clear to anyone on this forum. The parent is absolutely right. Responsibilities do matter. In this case, there was clearly a systemic problem that was repeateadly ignored by mulitple levels of hierarchy.
You position is a position of principle. When peopke lives are at risk (boeing, fukushima and yes even the post-office) pragmatism must prevail. Those in charge must pay the price, otherwise you incentivise financial results over everything else. People die? Oh that's because Greg in engineering is an idiot, burn him!
The problem is with insufficient QA and processes in place. If a coder delivers code that is insufficiently tested before deployment, the onus is on the product owner. It's the reason "owner" is synonymous with "person who is responsible."
I don't know where you live, but in my (extensive, but rather local) job experience so far, it's possible to raise concerns and propose solutions, etc., but once the IT director or VP of whatever says "we're not going to do that", it's over. You have to work on something else. Or find whistleblower protection, and good luck with that. Otherwise it'll be "Can you step into my office for a minute? Close the door, please."
