[ketzo]

Programmers are some of the most in-demand workers in the world. You wield significant influence. And any even-slightly-functional workplace will at least try to listen to the word of their experts.

Perhaps it’s possible you didn’t do enough to explain why you didn’t believe it was the right work to do, or if you did, perhaps there were other factors in play than “user experience.”

Also, uh, “I have to do what my boss says” doesn’t make you a blue collar worker.

[Mountain_Skies]

If programmers are some of the most in-demand workers in the world, why do they have to send out over 1000 job applications and are still treated like trash by hiring processes? Hacker News is one of the few places on Earth where this belief that programmers are in control of everything still exists. Pretty much everywhere else has adapted to the reality where programmers are in great surplus, but the investor class won't be happy until it's a minimum wage job, or even better, an unpaid internship. No wonder HN has a reputation for being a bunch of out of touch Bay Area investors with little concept of the real world.

[ravenstine]

Programmers have control over things product owners and management don't care about. Frankly, those are things nobody but programmers cares about. When it comes to meaningful decisions that would either improve or harm the user experience, I have only ever seen programmers treated as advisors at best and obedient little foot soldiers at worst. And why wouldn't they be treated this way by MBA types? Programmers are a necessary evil that management would rather not exist at all. Just because there are startups founded by programmers doesn't mean that's the reality of the vast majority of the software industry, or that said startups won't soon replace their leadership with MBA bozos whose only goal is making it to the next quarter.

[saagarjha]

Do you think this accurately describes a Google engineer?

[smallmancontrov]

Yesterday? No. Today? Maybe. Tomorrow? Yes.

[ffsm8]

> doesn’t make you a blue collar worker.

I know, I was exaggerating. I thought it was clear from my usage of the word "essentially".

> perhaps there were other factors in play than “user experience.”

Of course there were. There always are - chief among them the profitability, because selling the customer on stuff they didn't need is profitable. Especially if you frame it "right".

But that example is completely unrelated to this case, to very little value in getting deeper into it.

[ForHackernews]

> Also, uh, “I have to do what my boss says” doesn’t make you a blue collar worker.

No, but it does make you a non-professional. The distinction between professionals and non-professionals is that members of professions have ethical obligations above and beyond their obligation to their employer.

You will not find lawyers willing to perjure themselves, accountants to cook your books, or civil engineers happy to sign off on deadly designs.

In contrast, software "engineers" are not professionals, we are hired goons and you can easily find a software monkey ready to build whatever atrocity you want for the right price.

[jodrellblank]

> You will not find lawyers willing to perjure themselves, accountants to cook your books, or civil engineers happy to sign off on deadly designs.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxe9g0el8epo

https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/practice/general-practice/ac...

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3406928,00.html

[ForHackernews]

These are noteworthy counterexamples, the exceptions that prove the rules.

You will struggle to find any similar news stories for "software engineer jailed for implementing dark patterns"

[jodrellblank]

they prove your claim "you won't find this" is wrong.

And probably because that's not illegal.

[ForHackernews]

>that's not illegal

Unintentionally revealing comment here. Software goons have no concept of professional ethics and will do any terrible thing you pay them to do.

[jodrellblank]

You made 3 claims, all of them easily disproven. When someone else pushed the claim further, immediately disproven. All you have left to your comment is namecalling.

[OJFord]

None of these is an example of someone in one of those professions committing malpractice on their employer's instruction.

[jodrellblank]

That wasn't part of the parent comment, but okay, here: Tesco finance chiefs accused of cooking the books and bullying the finance employees below them to misconduct themselves:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/tesco-fraud...

“The three defendants who are on trial in this case are not the foot soldiers who misconducted themselves. The defendants in this case are the generals – those who are in positions of trust, and who were paid huge compensation packages in order to safeguard the financial health of Tesco.

“These defendants encouraged the manipulation of profits and indeed pressurised others working under their control to misconduct themselves in such a way that the stock market was ultimately misled.”"

[OJFord]

It was at least implied, I thought it was the whole point, because obviously there are malpractising professionals full stop:

> [...] ethical obligations above and beyond their obligation to their employer. You will not find lawyers willing [on behalf of their employer] to perjure themselves [...]

but based on their response to your the examples, :shrug:.

[ForHackernews]

My point is that [ethical] professionals [who are not committing malpractice] have an obligation to their peers, as embodied in a professional code of ethics that is independent from and supersedes their obligation to their employers.

[Many/most ethical] accountants [who are not committing malpractice] will tell their employer, "no, I can't sign off on those fraudulent financial statements," but software developers [as a community, I'm sure someone will pop up with one colorful example] will not tell their employer, "No, I won't run fake bots on the site to inflate our user numbers," or "No, I won't implement this browser fingerprinting to violate our users' privacy."

The sibling commenter seems to be willfully misreading this as "all lawyers are ethical"

[sdiupIGPWEfh]

Heard the of bimodal salary distribution? I'd bet it matches up quite well with a bimodal influence distribution.