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Comment by LeifCarrotson | Hacker News Reader

I'm likewise skeptical. I've done a number of projects for Boeing, and their engineers are some of the most cautious and careful customers I have ever had. Automotive tier-one customers need it done on time and under budget, no matter the shortcuts required to make that happen, but if the junior janitor at Boeing sees something he feels is maybe suboptimal we'll halt the project and fully study the concern. I keep my schedule clear for 2 months after an aerospace project is supposed to be done, because it probably won't be, and it will be better for it.

I just can't square these experiences with this news. Perhaps design and manufacturing are more siloed than I understand, or perhaps there really is an MBA culture running requirements and certification separate from the engineering of the physical components, but in my personal experience Boeing isn't a place that cuts corners.

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I've done a number of projects for Boeing, and their engineers are some of the most cautious and careful customers I have ever had.

And if you've been following the news you'll see the engineers had less and less say. Going back to the 787 program — Boeing tried to outsource a ton of the engineering and that resulted in minimal oversight and the type being grounded for a bit.

Keep in mind Boeing is a company where the previous CEO (McNerney) bragged about being able to make the employees cower in fear and pushed for dramatic cost reduction above all else.

I'm curious how long ago you did your projects for Boeing though, as there seems to be an appreciable shift in culture.

Welcome to HN, where 95% of the population has an absolute conviction about the knowledge that they gained in 5 minutes of internet searches, where every problem is obvious and easy to solve, and where a basic knowledge of computers allows one to opine about everything from politics to sex to optimal routing options for oil pipelines.

most of the people posting here about this topic don’t know a damned thing about it, they’re just regurgitating something they read on the 2nd page of google search results.

The fact is that most HN comments are full of shit.

In the same way that a good caricature or satire exaggerates to some degree while capturing something true, I think this comment probably ascribes a bit more arrogance to the average HN comment than is actually there, but I laughed anyway because you phrased it really well and in some cases you're actually spot-on.

I think that "where a basic knowledge of computers allows one to opine about everything from politics to sex to optimal routing options for oil pipelines" maybe captures our entire historical era. Nice work and a hearty lol

Maybe so, but please don't make the site even worse by posting like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Whenever these kinds of things happen, it usually doesn't seem to stem from the engineers themselves, but has far more to do with the organizational culture above them in management. I think we especially feel this in software, where people outside of software development have no idea how complex and hard it is to build these big systems and what can go wrong, and have crazy expectations and sell things that aren't possible to other people who also have no idea about software development with crazy expectations. Engineers, no matter how conscientious, can only do so much in the face of business requirements that are often out of touch with reality, where deaths or other problems are often considered a footnote or just another business expense.

The NYT did a podcast on Boeing : https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/podcasts/the-daily/boeing...

In that, a senior executive talked about how the quality and culture at the SC office (where the 737 MAX was built) of Boeing was significantly inferior to the rigor and care that people otherwise expected of Boeing.

Interesting, I hadn't seen that. All my work has been with the AZ office.

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