Why Cutting Costs Is Expensive How $9/Hour Engineers Cost Boeing Billions
medium.com
medium.com
Even the idea that a good software engineer would have caught the problem in the specification seems far fetched. The MCAS software was designed with a low impact (small individual corrections, small maximum total correction) that would have appeared safe to anyone, and those constants were increased later on. Do we expect good software engineers to second-guess changes in physical aero constants coming from aero engineers?
Beyond that, a good software engineer would have ensured that the specification made sense, that the integration with the rest of the system made sense, and that a sensible override system was part of the system design.
That said, the bulk of the article focuses on management's failure to ensure that quality was a priority, and to communicate that clearly in the company culture.