[mechEpleb]

An engineer's job is to solve a problem creatively, not execute a rote technical procedure. The people who are just fed detailed instructions to execute are called "technicians" in the traditional industries. If you want to claim the title of an engineer, act like one. If all you can do is write code to spec, you are a technician.

[gugagore]

Your use of "spec" here is a weasel word to make your point. There are many kinds of specs. The spec here is "users need a physical copy", the organization was intending to solve it by using the services of another business and a bunch of other expensive and complicated stuff that I was considering as categorically different from software.