[digisign]

Stop feeling guilty and start writing/improving a test suite. Start using linters and set up a CI pipeline. Don't ask permission, just do it in between tasks. If management is at all competent they will see you as promotional material in the medium term.

There's a classic Joel on Software post where he talks about making workflow changes as a grunt. An important point is that you want to get your daily work done first:

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/12/25/getting-things-don...

"… I also knew that making a good first impression was crucial. So I allocated the first seven hours of every day to just writing code, as was expected of me. There’s nothing like a flurry of checkins to make you look good to the rest of the development team. But I reserved another hour every afternoon before going home to improving the process. I used that time to fix things that made it hard to debug our product. I set up a daily build and a bug database. I fixed all the longstanding annoyances that made development difficult… Slowly, the process got better and better."

[neves]

Sure you need to improve your software engineering practices. Take a look of your version control, deploy process and automatic tests. The increase of your QA team is probably a bad smell. Remember the old quote: "You can't test quality into a product".

But also pay attention to your company culture. A "blame culture" is one of the worst enemies of good software/product. If your management work by making people feel guilty, you can't have candid conversations about your problems. You'll never find what you need to fix, because you won't be able to discover the real problems.

I've worked in a company where the "blame game" mode were always on. It was terrible. People didn't want to fix a problem, just pass it to the next guy. You'd never find the original cause of problems or have your management invest to solve it.

If you have a culture problem, don't let your employer make you feel bad. Take care of your mental health. A job change may be the best option.

[slumpa]

I love the idea behind this - as a software engineer, it's your job to build good processes, and not something to ask permission for.

But wow, some of this post is incredibly toxic and passive aggressive. Create your own personal bug tracker, then refuse to fix any bugs unless everyone else uses it? "Neutralize the bozos" by sending them incessant bug reports, until they're no longer productive? Can you imagine working on a team like that?

I totally agree that you should incrementally work towards hardening your systems. Inasmuch as it's something you can fit into your workday, I'd say that's just part of your job.

[digisign]

That he gets sarcastic at times is for entertainment purposes, not to hurt your feelings. Bozos do exist however and are not productive by definition. I don't think writing valid bugs should be a problem.