Thoughts about the role of a software QA engineer on a project

I've worked in a large organization that had a huge QA group. QA was taken really seriously. At various times, I had both a QA role and a development role.

Then, I moved to an organization where developers were responsible for their own QA. What I found was an incredible difference in the mentality around ownership of quality.

I began to realize that, perhaps obviously, quality was owned by the QA group, almost exclusively. It wasn't uncommon for developers to find a bug, but leave it untouched because QA would file it eventually.

So, while I completely respect QA engineers (I was one!), and think it is a pretty useful mindset to have, I also have observed how negatively it can impact an organizational culture. I'd be interested to hear from others about their experiences.