>a sophisticated attempt at building a professional organization that can spread simple standards which organizations can clearly measure themselves against.

We have that as a form of IEEE, but it really doesn't come up much if you're not already neck deep in the organization.

That's maybe in Europe. Plenty of US developers those days have a litany of ~1-2 year stints at FAANGs and startups du jour in their CV.

The little people are going to do what they need to do to survive. If these multi-billion or even multi-trillion dollar companies feel some type of way about it, well, they're the ones with all the power, not us. They're more than welcome to change the culture at any time.

This was even more apparent before the ACA passed, when insurance providers were not prevented from denying or charging more for customers with pre-existing conditions. Hate your job but have cancer? Better not leave, you might not even be able to get insured at your next job.

If you see an engineer is out of his depth then change his position, no need to fire them since like others have pointed out, that can have severe consequences in their personal lives and most of the time they can still be useful if they get more adequate work.

For instance by and large the role of organizing to not to get more money but rather to reduce indignities... Wasted work, lack of forethought, bad management, arbitrary layoffs, etc. So it is much more about governing management with good practices than about keeping wages up; at least for now wages are generally high anyway.

there are also reasons to dedend jobs/wages in the face of e.g. outsourcing... But it's almost like a separate problem. Maybe there needs to be both a union and a uncoupled professional standard or something?

>the role of organizing to not to get more money but rather to reduce indignities

agreed. And I think that's why it's going to really start taking hold as we enter year 4 of mass layoffs in the US (because outsourcing). Alongside overwork from the "survivors" and abusive PIPs to keep people on edge.

What objective measures would you use?

Oh, you meant innovative for the shareholders. Got it.

But regardless. Not like USA companies are open to EU citizens currently. Whether it's politics, compliance / legal, or tax-related, it does not matter much. Most US job ads I've seen lately are making it super clear that they want only US citizens.

A lot of the layoffs appear to be about conserving cash for investment in AI. In many cases the jobs that are cut are not backfilled by workers in the US or abroad.

Though I think Gen Z in general will be making waves in the coming years. They can't even get a foot in the door, so why should they care about "high salaries"?

I also think people here misunderstand what unions do. Unions are inherently conservative (small c) institutions that aim to protect the status quo. Improving processes is not a fundamental goal to unions. We saw this with the ILA that fought to essentially ban automation in the ports that would drastically increase efficiency because of the belief that this would reduce union jobs. It's foolish to think software unions wouldn't end up becoming like this.

In MANY other countries there is already WAY more regulations regarding layoffs and firing employees that has nothing to do with unions.

In Germany there is a probationary period in which you can just fire somebody for no reason basically. That time can be like half a year (in my case) and in most cases it becomes clear if the new hire fits your team or doesn't.

All unrelated to unions though. The big unions in Germany for example have a lot of power and if you are just a simple welder for example you'd have no chance getting anything done without a union.

When your scope is Europe ... The US is not the exception in the world, it's Europe which is.

The US has a dynamic job market where it's easy to lose your job, but easy to find another one. In Europe, and that's true for most EU countries, it's really hard to lose your job, but it's also really hard to get one for the very reason it's hard to get fired - and when you get a job, you will have to compromise on compensation and other benefits. It's not black and white here. While the European market is appealing to some people, the US market is preferable to others.

But that made me curious, and answering my own question, it's this guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hummelgaard who is indeed a Social Democrat .. So much about workers rights, funny ...

Re-reading your comment again, I'm not sure that I understand it: "Let's see whether Denmark remains competitive." What do you mean?

I agree with that, it's a very individual topic. I'd say for high paying "high performance" jobs the US model definitely has an advantage but for low-wage jobs it's quite the opposite.

For software that's actually safety critical, like avionics, there are already sufficient regulatory controls.

But I totally agree, I think people are too compliant and fear banding together to have influence on higher ups. I'd argue in most places the engineers have far more power than they realize since they are in high demand due to shortages of qualified personnel. (at least in many countries in Europe)

There are tons of factors in play though that I believe contribute to this like some employees being friends with their higher ups not wanting to hurt their careers, not wanting the tough discussions, the repercussions if management says "no" etc..

"Just". Come on, man, you know better than that. I too like my sci-fi to be over the top unrealistic.

Truth is, nobody ever thinks about their rights before it's too late. The paycheck shows up on time every month and people just don't want to rock the boat. Not to mention all the opportunists that will tell on you immediately to gain the favor of the upper class.

These things are well-known and apparently nothing ever changes before the guillotines start working. I don't think anything will ever improve in our area. Nobody is bothered. The people who are have zero power. And so it goes.

I honestly think it's just people who don't mind these problems and are fine working under those conditions, or they just quit once they are too annoyed. Change is way harder just than just leaving, I think that's also part of the reason why this keeps going on.

It's extremely sad. I did not want to live in such times but oh well, good thing anyone asked us, right?

> If standards mean imposing big constraints on development, nobody will pay attention to them.

Unless there are penalties for not doing so.

> tech has moved too fast for anyone to actually be able to credibly say how things should be done for longer than a year or two

But that's just it. If things are moving so fast that you can't say how things should be done, then that tells you that the first thing that should be done is to slow everything way down.

I think introducing more competition at higher levels may be better than eliminating it below. This should be happening because I’m pretty sure most PMs could be replaced by an LLM.

> This should be happening because I’m pretty sure most PMs could be replaced by an LLM

Says a lot about your understanding of these things.

Most PMs I've ever met had zero clue what they are doing. And no it's not only N=1 sample, same anecdote is heard from many, many other people.

But sadly enough, undeniable human incompetence there is not even the biggest problem. The "we will never make more reasonable deadline" is.

Most managers, not just PMs, are an objective net negative. As any ruling class always does, they get complacent and think that just putting their foot down is going to magically change reality.

Most people say that because they have no idea what a PM's job is and are upset that the PM isn't doing what they want.

Fact on the ground is that they usually optimize the entirely wrong indicators and never ever optimize for avoiding future problems.

In my consulting and contracting stints I made it a habit to write down what crisis is looming on the horizon and making bets with my wife which one is going to arrive first. A fun little game.

Watching train wrecks in slow motion stopped being fun with time.

What PM's job is is above my pay grade. I want them to enable me and the team, not be a mouth piece of people with zero understanding of product _and_ of engineering. They are just there to ask you how is stuff going.

Fact on the ground is they don't optimize for _your_ indicators and have to compromise on what problems can be addressed now or later. They only appear to be optimizing to the wrong indicators because you don't have all the information.

9/10 PM's work is literally avoiding any decisions and responsibilities whatsoever.

Concerned dev/ops/po: Dear PM, feature FOO-123 will not be merged before we start activities for Gate 5.2. FOO-123 is required for Gate 6.0 and if we start with Gate 5.2 activities without it, Gate 6.0 will be delayed by at least 5 weeks. Team FOO is projecting verification of FOO-123 being done by the end of week, which would delay Gate 5.2 by a week. Shall we delay our activities until FOO-123 is merged or start regardless?

PM: Gate 5.2 is extremely important for the project timeline and no delays are acceptable.

<- few moments later ->

PM: I was informed by Compliance that FOO-123 is mandatory, does that affect timelines for Gate 6.0?

Disgruntled employee: Either we start over Gate 5.2 activities with FOO-123 included, which would delay Gate 6.0 by at least 9 weeks, or you get team FOO to backport FOO-123.

<- few moments later ->

PM: gets promoted for successful handling of stressful situation with FOO-123, limiting project delay to 15 weeks and only overrunning projected costs of Gate 6.0 by 30%.

Since successful businesses continue to employ them, I'm going to err on the side of they do serve a function I don't always understand rather than they must be stupid.

On a less snarky note: Depending on organization type PMs might do a ton of paperwork on behalf of the teams and act as some sort of central point for business-product communication, however that has exactly nothing with management in any typical definition.

And yes most PMs are useless, regardless of how snarkily you attempt to push that element aside.

Your balanced take is nice and I wish I inhabited that reality. So far I have not. Maybe it's the region market or maybe my marketing sucked.

If you talk about an upcoming shitshow you are generally seen as not entrepreneurial, if you mitigate a risk before it becomes a crisis that crisis is not viewed as crisis. However, if you let a crisis happen and "successfully" manage it you are seen as a hero.

Executives are generally incompetent everywhere and of course they'll introduce a reality distortion field where none of them are ever accountable. That should be obvious to anyone. Question is why do all working people keep allowing it to happen. But the answer to that is also known and quite depressing, too.