[shermantanktop]

Sure, the judgment that was missing is better assigned to the “management” skillset rather than the “technical” skillset.

But everyone needs some of both - the most purely technical engineer still needs the personal judgment to hit dates that matter, show up when others need them, and avoid overinvesting in purely play activities.

In this case, better managers would help but honestly any experienced engineer would know that constant customer complaints mean that something is going to change.

[dimask]

The article does not criticise the fact that "something changed", it criticises what specifically changed. The point of dealing with a problem is not to point fingers and find who is guilty, it is to actually find solutions to the problem. And yeah, frankly, having customers complain about a UX is not the end of the world and nobody needs to be scolded about it. They just have to understand what the complaints are about and make a better UX, which they did. It happens all the time.

[shermantanktop]

> having customers complain about a UX is not the end of the world and nobody needs to be scolded about it

Sometimes that's true. Sometimes it isn't, and the bad UX is the seed that leads to a terrible destructive management overreaction.

Should an engineer be able to tell the difference? In some companies, I think that's a reasonable expectation, but in other companies, engineers are cordoned off and told what to do.

I'm reading the same article that others are, so I don't know. But I do see a lot of engineers get surprised in a way that could be prevented by just a bit of proactive thinking.