Funny, we hold civil engineers accountable and there seem to be plenty of capable engineers to do things that need to be done, and we hold bad pilots accountable, and yet the only reason airlines have a pilot shortage is because they refuse to pay more than $20k a year.

Developers need to stop being so allergic to accountability. It's kind of pathetic

I studied mechanical engineering myself, so I hear you.

That being said, software development and civil engineering are very different in terms of risk management. There are strict regulations around what you do and if you play by the rules, you have minimum to no risk. Even if dozens of people die under a collapsing building you are not accountable if everything you had done was by the book.

Software development, on the other hand, is more like wild west. There are minimal regulations, only best practices. One developer can never know if the end product is free of any errors.

Pilots are a completely different story. The OP was talking about "causing company X to lose Y dollars", not human lives.

> Start punishing mistakes and you will soon have a hard time finding good people to employ. Only bad (and broke) ones will be available.

Nah, the opposite. Being paid $800k/year is a great carrot. It should come with a stick so fewer people do the cruise control.