People learn by screwing up, and those can be the best lessons.
In one of my early jobs, I spammed a bunch of the company customers, trying to promote my music. This was before the Internet (1987 or so), and before spam, so I was a “proto-spammer.”
It became a watershed in my life, and I took my work and career, very, very seriously, after that.
> People learn by screwing up, and those can be the best lessons.
Precisely.
Had the author been fired for his actions, the only people who could learn from the situation would be those employed at that time. As each cycled out of the company, this lesson would be lost.
By addressing the error in judgement while retaining the author, the organization ensured the lesson would be passed on to each new generation of engineers without having to prescribe the policy dictatorially.
Berating in an office might teach one person. Not berating and admitting process failure in public can be educational for the whole company.
Reminds me of Gitlab's database deletion thing a few years ago. Not only they spent money educating the one engineer, by making the story public they also educated their other employees, and dare I say the whole industry. I still hear people referring to that story from time to time.