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Comment by passivepinetree | Hacker News Reader

I used to work for an airline as a software engineer (different from a company that makes airplanes, but you brought up airlines, so I think it's valid).

We definitely attempted to write the best code as we could given the circumstances, but we had issues doing so:

* airline margins are razor thin, so salaries are comparatively low, which means

* the best employees frequently left for other opportunities, causing

* management to institute an over-reliance on process and tech debt from poor engineers to build up like crazy, and then

* management's priority was always "keep the lights on" rather than repay any tech debt or start new ventures.

Eventually we were working on an unmaintainable codebase, spending way too long to ship each feature, and the situation was not improving.

It was not a wonderful environment to work in (hence my departure).

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> * airline margins are razor thin, so salaries are comparatively low

Excluding executive pay, of course. Oh and excluding stock buybacks (which increases shareholder value, consequently greatly increasing the value of executive compensation).

https://www1.salary.com/AMERICAN-AIRLINES-GROUP-INC-Executiv...

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/4515/000000620118000...

Razor thin margins which result in $200 million (give or take) in quarterly profits are not exactly sad stories.

In summary, the non-executive employees are paid as little as possible to keep the company operating. And by operating, I mean that the bottom line/shareholder value is all that matters. Safety is really just a bottom line consideration. If an accident or two happens, and an eventual death payout is made, as long as the bottom line is not greatly affected, there will be no change in corporate behavior with respect to paying people properly and not cutting corners.

Arguments like this are absurdity taken to the max. Any executive's pay is a tiny tiny fraction compared to the combined salary of all the employees. Even if you set that salary to zero and divided it up all equally to all the employees (fractionally, so those who already make more get a bigger cut) the engineers would only get a couple dollars extra.

Secondly stock buybacks are similarly tiny compared to how much money a company actually has to give to its employees. Run the calculation some time. You need to be looking at revenues, not profits.

> I used to work for an airline as a software engineer (different from a company that makes airplanes, but you brought up airlines, so I think it's valid).

Airframe software is a totally different ballgame than airline operations management software.

When I worked on the 757 on flight critical systems (stab trim) the engineers I worked with took great pride in making the designs as good as possible. Nobody wanted to sign off on a design that they'd get a phone call on years later as being the cause of a pile of dead bodies.

I personally am proud that none of the stuff I worked on or any of the guys I knew worked on has been a factor in any incidents I've ever heard of.

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