Engineering Ethics in the Age of Infrastructure Automation
Author: Nigel Dsouza
In an era when infrastructure-as-code can spin up global systems in minutes and AI-driven deployments handle more logic than human hands, cloud architects are no longer just builders — they’re gatekeepers of trust.
I’ve seen this firsthand while leading the design of critical financial infrastructure at Fidelity Investments, where small missteps in architectural decisions can ripple across billions in transactions, investor confidence, and regulatory compliance.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: while we’ve accelerated delivery pipelines, we’ve often left behind the deeper reflection on why we build the systems we do — and who they impact.
"Software is eating the world. Architects decide what it digests."
🧱 Cloud Infrastructure Isn’t Neutral
It’s tempting to view AWS Lambda functions, CI/CD pipelines, or disaster recovery frameworks as morally neutral tools. After all, they’re just lines of code, scripts, or Terraform modules — right?
But when you automate how, when, and where systems recover (or don’t), you’re making judgment calls about continuity, access, and resilience.
When I helped lead the architecture of a real-time failover system for our Alternative Investments platform, the technical challenge was clear — ensure zero downtime with no manual intervention. But the ethical challenge was subtler:
- Should we prioritize geographic diversity or latency?
- Do we build for speed, or for fail-safes that might slow down releases but protect users better?
These questions aren’t technical.
They’re values-based.
👀 Invisible Decisions, Visible Consequences
Take CI/CD pipelines — one of my key contributions across multiple squads was designing reusable, Terraform-based deployment flows. These pipelines reduced deployment time by over 75%.
But in enabling speed and standardization, they also centralized control over how software moves to production.
It raised critical questions:
- Who has visibility into what gets deployed?
- How do we prevent the erosion of quality in favor of speed?
- What governance is embedded — and where is it missing?
Without thoughtful reflection, tools that optimize developer experience can inadvertently obscure accountability.
🧭 Why Engineers Need a Values Framework
We don’t need to turn every stand-up meeting into a philosophy debate.
But we do need to embed ethical review loops into system architecture — just as we embed logging, monitoring, and unit tests.
Here’s a simple starting point I’ve adopted with my teams:
Transparency over complexity
Document not just how a system works, but why it was designed that way.Fail safely, not just fast
Prioritize graceful degradation over perfect uptime in edge cases.Build for the humans at the edge
That includes the junior developer debugging a prod issue
and the investor checking their portfolio at midnight.
🚀 Engineering Culture Is the Real Infrastructure
No amount of cloud tooling can compensate for a culture that ignores ethical reasoning.
I’ve mentored engineers who can deploy entire microservices ecosystems on EKS clusters — but struggle to articulate why a rollback strategy matters beyond uptime.
We need to teach not just how to build scalable systems,
but also how to build responsible systems.
Because if the infrastructure we’re creating doesn’t reflect the values we stand for,
then we’re just automating indifference at scale.
👤 About the Author
Nigel Dsouza is a Principal Software Engineer and Technical Lead at Fidelity Investments.
He specializes in architecting scalable, cloud-native systems on AWS, with a focus on financial technology, automation, and disaster recovery.
Nigel holds two Master’s degrees — in Computer Science and Engineering Management — and is a recognized contributor to enterprise-scale innovation in cloud infrastructure.
Top comments (13)
this hits hard tbh - i always catch myself asking if any of my work really lines up with what i value or if i'm just following the roadmap. you think values frameworks can actually stick in fast-moving teams or nah?
Really enjoyed this, Nigel. It’s a refreshing take to see cloud architecture framed through the lens of values rather than just tools and tech. Your focus on clarity, cost-awareness, and collaboration really highlights what it takes to build systems that are not only scalable, but thoughtful and sustainable. Thanks for the perspective!
This made me think. Would ethics in this context be an interplay between the economics of the process (cost of extra redundancy, longer user life) juxtaposed with what would delight the customer? And more so, can AI, based solely on training models, really evaluate customer delight ? I wonder.
The approach you follow with your teams is admirable Nigel, because every last human at the edge is important.
This piece set me thinking though: does cloud architecture always reflect the values of the Architect? Or could those values be "clouded" by the values of the organisation commissioning the build?
A much needed perspective🙌💯
An interesting read.
Well written and explained.
Very insightful. Well written and explained.
Thoughtful insight...well written 👍
Nice one!
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