What do Civil, mechanical, electrical, non-software Engineers have as a career path? None are in upper management. Maybe you get some stock options? You certainly don’t get to be in charge unless you start your own small, fledgling engineering company and then the chances are you only work on small projects since you aren’t big enough to sue if anything goes wrong you can’t get big contracts.
Hoping someone can shed some light on another path for career professional engineers.
If you are building a webapp, it's probably fine that you haven't taken an ethical code, been legally qualified to write the code, etc, but those "engineers" that write code that keeps airplanes in the air or driverless cars on the road have, in my opinion, crossed that line into actual engineering work and as such should hold themselves to the same standards as other professionals in the space.
In the case of MCAS there would be a codebase with a signed commit by the responsible engineer, his or her name would be right there in bold when the first version was shipped and when hack upon hack was piled on. Of course this is no panacea but this has to be the way forward as software continues to extend it's reach into mission critical roles in our lives, right?
[0] https://www.faa.gov/other_visit/aviation_industry/designees_...
> So these software engineers would be referred to as Systems and Equipment Engineering leads in this case?
I suppose you could say so, however my understanding has always been that DERs are highly specialized. "Systems and Equipment" covers a wide variety of aircraft components; I would think that's more of a category than a title. As a software engineer, on a project level, we've always simply referred to them as "The DER".
While DERs certainly have a background in engineering, they don't actively help create the product - I wouldn't classify them as a "Engineering Lead". When it comes to designing something, its safety is derived from different internal groups with different goals continuously evaluating each other's work. At each level, everyone signs off on the work they performed or reviewed. As I understand it, the DER oversees all of this, and on a technical level, is ultimately responsible for convincing the FAA everything is safe. On the software side of things, whenever there's a release, a DER has to sign off on it.
My takeaway is embrace cartels, they're immune to market pressures and they're fundamentally conservative.
"Based on studies done at MIT and other universities,[4] higher pay and bonuses resulted in better performance ONLY if the task consisted of basic, mechanical skills. It worked for problems with a defined set of steps and a single answer. If the task involved cognitive skills, decision-making, creativity, or higher-order thinking, higher pay resulted in lower performance" source: book The Drive by Dan Pink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive:_The_Surprising_Truth_Ab...
Profit motive might not make me more creative (debatable) but it will certainly enable me to work for years on end.
If that is true then it logically follows that management is not highly skilled work, no?
Do the people who come up with these theories even bother to think it through at all?
Thus engineering goals and management goals may not be the same.
Your statement about management not being skilled work makes no sense. Do you have some evidence that paying managers more leads to better performance?
There is no such evidence yet manager’s reward themselves and their peers lavishly anyway. That’s the point. The research is a scam to justify underpaying skilled workers so management can keep it all for themselves.
At least open the wikipedia page before making such completely incorrect statements.
And yet managers are highly paid and incentivised with large bonuses. How do you explain that paradox if pay is not an incentive? Managers can reward themselves and their peers with literally anything and they always choose more money. How do you explain it?
Theory and Wikipedia are fine but look at what actually happens in the real world. I read the original research in HBR when it was first published by the way. I didn’t believe it then either.
This is also relatively new and it takes time for traditions to change. When it comes to the real world, you can clearly see this research in action, particularly in the world of software. There has been a shift from offering pure financial incentive (e.g. working in finance) towards more intrinsic rewards (mission-driven, autonomy, ownership, etc that most top-end software companies prioritize)
“Top-end software companies” like say Google? Once again you look at the real world and find that companies find a reliable means of attracting and retaining staff is high pay.
What if you got paid your bonus not in cash but in paid time off? You could use that time for more self-actualisation. But (pretty much) zero companies offer it and no employees demonstrate a preference for it. In the real world money is what people want.
I don't think you have a very open mind in this discussion. People who aren't struggling to pay their bills prioritize things like autonomy, happiness and purpose above cash all the time.
Taking such a narrow view, many engineers fail to provide adequate and effective input into the program, and managers learn to ignore their concerns as not relevant to the larger picture.
Maybe if engineers were properly incentivized by profit sharing or something, they could help maximize profits without throwing out everything else like managers keep urging them to.