Whether little or big, has there been a time you've had to put your foot down on an issue, or perhaps you wanted to but didn't feel comfortable?
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Latest comments (59)
Well, as a lead architect ethics is just another part of the big equation that ties everything together. And putting down your foot is basically a daily activity just to keep everyone at bay and prevent zealous stakeholders from turning your product into a monstrosity. Having said that I feel that GDPR has been a particular difficult topic for most of my clients. I've had a lot of difficult meetings around this topic, where both the other party and myself have taken different stands on the topic. On the one hand you want to be fully compliant, treat your user's privacy with the utmost respect and just be a good boy. On the other hand we live in a world where doing all of that will result in a tremendous loss of revenue and your client's clients turning over to the competitor (who of course is Evil, didn't comply and is raking in all the money). Big companies cough Facebook cough Google ahem who I think should act more like a role model, have done the exact opposite in the past, which hasn't helped smaller businesses to take this topic seriously.
Many, many times. I work mostly for startups, and, sometimes, they don't understand that everything has a cost in development. They understand technical debt as something they can repay later, after years of good services. This kind of debt is way different than the financial counterpart.
Our team complained loudly over the handling and display of user data. Fortunately enough, after many discussions, examples of social engineering and showcase of how to abuse the application our view was heard and we are not handling it in a much more responsible way.
Was this complaining made to people from a Western business culture?
I quit my job at Google over Google's lack of ethics. onezero.medium.com/google-workers-...
The whole China thing kind of did raise an eyebrow for me.
I don't think even the West quite knows the level and sheer scale of depredation the PRC quietly perpetrates behind "The Wall."
Yes.
Partly the reason I left a previous role as a security researcher, the things you discover become double edged swords depending what your employer does with them.. and I got worried when the bonus arrived for a particularly juicy one!
I've really had to scratch my head on this one.
I guess I can say I've wanted to start a fuss about anything related to dev integrity ("wait, we should support all the evergreen browsers if we can. It's a google search away!" "Thats not accessible, and we should really change that contrast") but having had short job runs I veer on the caution of speak once, provide my recommendation, and let the rest be up to management.
Yes I turned down a client when I found out they had been struck off their professional register for selling controlled goods illegally.
I once left a company I was CTO of and had shares in because I believed the direction we were taking was unethical. This was an online gaming/gambling company where ethics were high on the priority list. Unfortunately at some point, they started making gambling products for minors and I had to leave the company. Fortunately, they ended up shutting that part of the company down and are now back to working ethically. I no longer want to work in that market because I've come to the conclusion gambling is an unhealthy market to work in for me.
My immediate reaction, beyond basic incredulity, was a question, "How's that working out for them?"
I'm glad to see you answered that question immediately.
I feel like they really did try to do that by the way, they just got off-track. They strongly invested in customer support and systems that automatically shut a user off if they were losing too much, too quickly to prevent people from going bust. It's still a bandage on a flesh wound, but it was interesting to experience
Consistently, in terms of privacy, security, and maintaining the balance between business-centric models and customer-centric models.
Most often it is in terms of how and what data is shared between ourselves and our integration partners, and what level of trust can be placed in them.
Also because we often deal with real money, there are legal implications that must always be considered that vary from country to country.
Most of the time that falls under my umbrella of oversight, and can sometimes conflict with the business' needs.
GDPR - just making it super clear to clients that they cannot just email anyone they want to. They need to have explicit consent.
This. I was once asked to pull the emails of some people who had registered during a specific event to send them to the organizer of the event (third party). Like... no?
I was particularly disappointed because it happened in a small company that prided itself on its ethical approach to game development.
I offered to resign, if team members from my team is fired, I was working in a startup, and there used to be parties after a new client is on-boarded and people used to drink a lot. My team had few juniors, after party they decided to stay in office, and unfortunate broke some glasses. My new VP tried to be over smart and took decision to fire them, and told me his decision, I asked him to fire me as well, he got scared because he never thought that I will do it, I stood for my team, because this culture was created by organization and they can not be blamed. They got some notice after that, not to repeat something like that.
These are all different bosses by the way:
In almost all cases I left the company unless the behaviour was corrected.
These were all tech startups.
Sounds like you should charge into a different segment of programming. Something other than startups.
You're right, and I have.
Yeah! Posted here too
Is it ethical to work as a shadow developer by hiding identity? (Please read and help me)
Anower Jahan Shofol γ» Feb 22 γ» 2 min read
I don't know if this fits into this, but I had a bit of an issue when we were making a register page, where the user needed to enter their gender. My manager said, just add male and female. I said that this should no be binary, we should at least add the option for a 'Non-Binary' answer (although I identify with male gender, but know many people don't). He replied that this is not something we should worry about and that there are only 2 genders.
In the end, we ended up just putting the 2 options, I was quite pissed by the fact they don't even care about the people that might use this system. It's not just this, they didn't care about accessibility either.
The project then changed hands and the previous manager went another way gladly, I'm now the lead front end developer, and a good friend is the manager now. It's still not changed but we are in the workings :)
It's a valid question of diversity/inclusion.
But here's a little perspective: he was right about "not something that you should worry about". Because it's not a technical discussion. You're there to make decisions about building the site, not content. Content decisions are made by other people.
Your boss seriously just wanted to get shit done, and it's not his responsibility to answer that question. The concern that you addressed was a side topic and would have served only to hinder project progress. Matter of fact, if you get nothing else from my post here, understand this: The guy that's your boss, anything he does is because he has a boss to report to.
On the other hand, if it's truly a topic that you believe needs to be addressed,
then be the change you want to see in the world.
In the position that you had, questions about content are absolutely within your power to take up the chain somewhere. Ask your bosses boss, ask your boss to ask the client, there's a million ways to address it, but there was a path there somewhere. There's always a path.
And it could easily begin with a question to that manager: "Then who would I talk to about this?" I'm not going to pretend to know the social implications of that particular manager, but any boss that's really just trying to get shit done would be ecstatic that someone else was taking a potential topic off their plate.
The main problem here is that it is NOT an issue where you were being ignored or your boss wasn't taking things seriously. Taking that approach would definitely be a distraction to the real question about diversity.
Doesn't hurt to have engineers who think about the bigger picture. But yeah, overall I do agree with this.
Ever heard the story of the "The Blue Capacitor"?
I have not, worth taking a look?
Yes. Yes it is.
TL:DR; Company runs into a huge issue due to single sourced part: A capacitor. 'Twas chosen because it was pretty, engineer didn't think to check supply chain of the part because it's "not my area."
Single sourced means there's only one supplier, rather than multiples. If the only source of the supplier runs into capacity issues, the whole damn thing shuts down. We're seeing a bit of this with the whole SARS-2 outbreak's effect on modern supply chains.
Anyway, the VP of this company responsible for supply chains has to go down through 6 layers of management to talk to the engineer who specified it.
The engineer's reason? "It was blue, and looked better on the board. Supply chain's not my area."
Suffice to say, many specialized workers do not have much of a good reason to look outside of their area. "Will that affect my paycheck or my performance ratings? NOPE!" But companies who can inspire sidelong glances by their specialists, at other parts of the business will get more opportunities and avoid risks. That example was for an engineer who could have avoided a huge risk by making a sidelong glance at the supply chain implications of a decision.
But what about the sales guy who decides to learn Visual Basic, or the finance VP who tries out Terraform?
Or the backend Enterprise systems coder who asks his employer (ahem) to consider paying for graphic design lessons?
I saw that story you posted.
Yeah that person had no reason to poke their head up for any reason, so they didn't.
The person I was replying to had a desire, a goal. There's ways to get that stuff done. Typically, especially for stuff that is not on the Design Doc π, you're going to have to color outside the lines to get anything done.
A good supv will help you because it helps you get better.
An average supv can't be bothered to help you.
A bad supv won't help you at all because it helps you get better than them.
I totally agree with you in some sense, I might have not explained it correctly. It was not a technical question nor discussion, we where planing that detail at the moment. Not building it.
And the thing is, it was a little startup, where content and building the site was done by me, then why should I not bring this up? It was my job in a sense... I just wanted to consider it, but he just ignored me and said some rude things, which is the point I was trying to make, If he wouldn't have left I would of because he was not a good chap and I was not comfortable what so ever working for him :(
It was also not just this, there where many more cases... like accessibility... not even considering it (even for the future)...
I have had many "Bosses" that just want to get shit done, but fail to see important details and don't accept ideas/improvements from others in the team... just because they are the "boss". But totally understand your point, shit needs to be done... and shit was done, but also shit must be considered and thought.
I have been, I ended up managing the front end and have made an effort to introduce some more accessibility and give a bit more importance to topics such as diversity/inclusion... still working on it, as "its not a priority", see that would be a good answer from my manager not "There are only 2 genders"...
For me the issue came with his comments on gender, they were not love comments, I can only tell you that much here.
That's an unnecessary judgement based on a severe lack of communication.
Which leads to another point: If someone doesn't directly and exactly agree with you, labelling them as "part of the problem" dilutes the original message and doesn't help your cause.
The original message here is to be sensitive to issues of inclusion. It's not about race, or gender or even any specific minority. That boss, based on your original post, seemed to be taking the track that I would have taken: "I'm more interested in complete the project to spec."
Now, I would have added to the conversation "If you think it's a discussion to be had, here's who you might talk to". Further, I would probably have helped you navigate the labyrinth to at least get a response.
The boss cast his opinion, which had no affect on anything . . . neither getting things done nor your drive to find a solution for accessibility. He didn't stop you from pursuing it elsewhere, which you could have done, regardless. Even in the end, if everyone at the office had told you "no" to the question, there are plenty of external resources and advocacy groups that would be willing to hear your story and perhaps even pursue a path of getting such a change made.
BUT . . . since I didn't agree with your directly and exactly, I'm part of the problem?
A group of black folks hollering "Black Lives Matter!" at a Bernie Sanders rally dilutes the message. Hollering "Sexual assault!" when an 80 yr old man pats a 26 yr old on the shoulder dilultes the message. Hollering "Pedophile!" at an 18 yr old with a 17 yr old significant other dilutes the message.
Casting an opinion that a person attempting to give you corporate perspective is part of the problem faced by... whoever it is you're trying to champion... it dilutes the original message and it does not help the cause.
Thanks for that man!! And sorry, I was quite stressed that day and sometimes I say stupid sh*t, I'm trying to improve that.
You are totally right and really appreciate your point, and that you took the time to explain it. Most people would have just ignored it, so thanks!
I might add this, we are now in the 3rd year of refactoring that project because this "Boss" left 3yr tech depth on a 1yr project... this might give an insight into why I wasn't happy with him... this does not mean he was wrong not caring about that at the moment, but this translated to many other aspects of the project. And he did not accept opinions nor ideas from anyone... not even his boss.
This would have been a better approach, many managers/bosses should try and do this more, better than saying bad things about it or not considering it... so yeah, I don't think you're one of "them".... sorry again.