> This is a prime example of why programmers are not seriously considered engineers.

Seems to me like your comment is simply an example of prejudice.

You're just describing another standardized incentive structure that you're operating in, and using that as a basis to extrapolate that programmers of all kinds—whether they work on a video platform or on machinery that could cause catastrophe if it fails—are implicitly careless careerists who refuse responsibility by nature.

"The rat is always right." - B.F. Skinner.

When the rat presses a lever, don't blame the rat. This is super reductionist of course, but I always keep it in mind.

I think there is a fine line. YouTube is not critical software and no one’s life depends on the safety (putting mental health aside) of the code running. Some software engineers do however write code that is critical, but to your point, I don’t think they are ever considered liable.

I went through an acquisition as a Canadian software developer getting acquired by an American company. They wanted us to be called engineers like the rest of their SWEs but in Canada it’s a protected namespace. It’s illegal to call yourself an engineer without having the ring and the papers. Which personally I can appreciate.

The entire rail industry suffers from massive deferred maintenance issues that manifest as serious safety concerns. This shit happens in every industry: dieselgate, 737max, flint water crisis, PG&E camp fire, etc. Let's not pretend one engineering discipline is holier than thou -- especially when the consequences are derailments versus some leaked youtube videos.

> This is a prime example of why programmers are not seriously considered engineers.

The problem isn't the programmers ffs. In your industry, if your superior orders you (or creates the incentive) to hide bad stuff under the rug, you have the ability to push back, at least to some degree.

Programmers? We don't have that. Maybe the few of us who actually work on security critical stuff, but some generic AI BS? No chance. You're being treated as a cog.

I remember hearing this perspective when I first started in the software industry, and I agreed with it for quite some time. But frankly, we’ve never been further from it.

objective systems become gamified

subjective systems become politicized

pick your poison

Eh, clearcut promo paths used to be a bigger thing in the 90s and they did work for a little while, they just didn't handle exceptions well, and then the whole developed world up and thought they were also exceptions. Certifications used to matter more, now they are so cheapened that you cannot do much without them.

5 years ago they had the same incentives.

It’s not about fairness or democracy (maybe you meant meritocracy?) at all although it’s sold that way to participants - it’s primarily about ownership’s ability to cascade management duties, including mitigating latent negotiation powers by individual workers and groups of workers

Shipping great products is about the details that almost nobody will notice

A good promo process needs to notice the invisible

Apple did it for decades

I don't think it's the promo process itself. If the bug was something that actually affects Google's bottom line, I guarantee that Google would find a way such that the engineer would be incentivized to fix it.

Sweep it under the rug is not limited to any paticular industry.

What do you mean? Youtube is unquestionably one of the most successful projects ever launched? Seems like the process works astoundingly well.

Google leadership has been from research/engineering and product backgrounds. This is how hierarchical businesses operate

My first thought when reading the article was: "The generous interpretation here is that whoever is fielding reports gets so many false positives that they miss true positives (like this report), especially if there's any gray area."

I'm not saying that excuses it, but it is one likely explanation for how it happened. When looking at just one report, the response seems negligent. When looking at a pile of 1000 nonsense reports, with a handful like this, I understand the difficulty.

I disagree with this pretty strongly. If you’re not going to take responsibility for your bugs I don’t want to work with you.

Don’t make other people QA your work; if you’re not able to figure out how to do that yourself while you work you’re legitimately bad at your job.

Once you leave an employer obviously you have no obligation to fix bugs in IP you don’t own or anything.

Lifetime is too much. One or two re-orgs at most.

People only spend a couple of years at each company anyway

It's not cute, it's a sensible way to build greater understanding by learning from mistakes. The thing is, it has to be engrained in the culture and that also means it may need to take priority over other work. Responsibility doesn't need to mean you have to write the code, just see it through.

Ok. So QA finds a bug. Who’s responsible for fixing it? The only value of QA is to try to make sure you become aware of issues before customers find them

It's even worse when you don't work at a tech. Even the simplest of Excel formulae, power automate flows simply go abandoned once the creator moves on, or maybe a very expensive consultant is onboard to maintain what amounts to a handful of lines of code. It's embarrassing how little initiative the average information worker has when it comes to stuff like this.

No, it’s really not, it’s none of our jobs to do that. It’s our job to make our employer (even if you are your own employer) money.

It’s incredibly rare you have the luxury of even trying to deliver bug free code, let alone achieve it.

Spoken like a user and not an owner

Definitely. The front line support agents handle only the most basic requests. Anything even remotely complicated, such as this, would be internally kicked around until they found someone familiar with the project to give input. Which most likely is someone who worked on the original implementation.