My work can affect peoples safety, and my employer prefers rapid development over quality?

Question

I work at a company where bugs in my code could affect peoples safety, but often the company seems to prefer rapidly developed features (which the company uses to make more money) over high quality code. The company likes to throw around the slogan that "our work helps protect people" to highlight the importance of our work, but their actions say "more features, more money, right now."

This isn't unique to the software development world as other professions have similar tradeoffs between work output, safety, and the time required to create the work.

What can be done as an individual contributor to ensure our work maximizes people's safety, despite the inevitable desire of companies to make more features and more money?

Answer 1

but their actions say "more features, more money, right now."

What actions, specifically?

I am not trying to disagree with you, but by understanding what actions are taken, we can better choose a reaction.

The quality versus timeliness debate is a problem that every software development house suffers.

There are 3 conflicting constraints you can overcome. Pick any 2:

1. You can produce your product cheaply.
2. You can produce your product at good quality.
3. You can product your product quickly.

Every company thinks it can get all 3. It's a fantasy.

If you asked management which ones they value, would they admit to sacrificing the quality? It's possible to produce good quality software quickly. It just costs a lot because you'd have to hire extraordinarily good developers.

You, as a professional software engineer and somebody of high moral character, value quality in your work. That's great. Even if the company values getting features out quickly more than quality, you still have options.

Take Your Time

If management says you are working too slowly and they need to ship soon to get sales, explain that quality will suffer. If you have a release where you rushed and it had lots of problems and a release where you did not rush and had few or zero problems, cite that as justification.

If they point to a coworker and say "Jane is working faster than you", don't react. Do what you need to do to ensure your work meets your quality standards. If you cause fewer bugs than Jane, explain that to your manager (privately and politely. don't throw her under the bus. you should be defending yourself, not attacking Jane).

Budget for Quality

Programming very well takes time. When asked how long you need, give an honest estimate for how long you need to do a good job. Don't let management bully you into lowering your estimate. Then you will have to hurry and get sloppy to meet the stupidly-chosen deadline. Management should never tell you your estimate is wrong.

I've seen a co-worker get bullied by a manager (not his) for saying his project will take 3 months. A coworker stood up and said he can do it in a few hours. Projects led by that 1-hour coworker tend to launch many months late with thousands of open defects. The 3-month guy's project is finishing up on the exact day.

Break Projects into Smaller Projects

Sometimes, it isn't necessary to get everything shipped ASAP, but just to have quick turnarounds of something to show. If you work on features that take 3-6 months to build and are expected to do it in a month, would it help if you break the feature into several mini-feature releases so there is progress being shipped out the door quickly, but less risk to quality?

Show management examples of how poor quality can affect safety

As a developer, you probably don't get any communication or feedback to or from customers. So you don't know what safety issues they have experienced. However, you can theorize problems and talk management through it. Ask them how much it would cost to ensure these mistakes don't occur versus how much it would cost to handle litigation.

Go Work Somewhere Else

Ultimately, you work for your employer. You are there to help them achieve their goals. If their goals are in conflict with your values, you can find another job. I don't mean that to be insulting. Software engineers are very lucky to have tons of jobs available to choose from. Don't stay at a company that forces you to do something that could hurt people.

Answer 2

Licensed, professional software engineers are ethically required to place the public's safety at a higher priority than the needs of their employer.

If you were truly in a situation where the public's health or safety was jeopardized, you would be obligated to raise your concerns with your manager and on up through the rest of the company's hierarchy if you did not receive a satisfactory response that safeguarded the public. In the worst case, you would be obligated to continue your protests through to external, regulating bodies and potentially to the state board of professionals as a last resort. In the extreme case, you should quit your job and explain your concerns for the public safety as the basis for your resignation.

Have a look at the National Society of Professional Engineers Code of Ethics for Engineers or the IEEE and ACM's Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice

Answer 3

Executive Summary

There is no such thing as 100% safe. Nothing is infallible. The key is to balance the benefit of making something 99.99% safe vs. the additional cost over making it 99.9% safe. That is usually a decision for corporate officers and regulators. For someone working on the creation of that product, the goal should be to make it as safe as possible within the constraints given.

Disclaimer: The following is given on the premise that the company is not ignoring regulations, accepted safety standards, or somehow being deceitful about the actual safety of their product with knowledge otherwise.

Risk Management

Let's say I'm producing a product that has a defect rate of 0.01%. My customers will pay $10 more for a product with a defect rate of 0.001%. If it costs more than $10 to reduce the defect rate that much, it will actually make my customers more unhappy (as they won't value my product as highly due to the additional cost).

While distasteful, this math does extend to human safety as well. Let's say you are the owner of a trucking company. There is a truck on the market that will reduce mortality from accidents by a factor of 10, but it will increase your cost by $x per mile. If your customers aren't willing to pay the extra $x per mile, you have to make a business decision.

Safety does not exist in a vacuum, and nothing will be 100% safe. The tradeoff of increasing safety will hit a point where it is no longer possible to stay safe and remain in business.

Regulating Risk

This sort of risk calculus is the realm of corporate officers and regulators.

Some risks society dictates as "too big" and/or "too easy not to require", and regulate those risks through laws. For instance, seat belt laws, and safety standards for automobiles have been determined as "must-haves" and are regulated by the government. Prohibitions on smoking at gas pumps would be another example.

But beyond those regulated risks, it is up to corporate officers to decide what is right for their business. Let's say I own a construction firm. It is common knowledge that construction isn't the safest line of work (fatality rate of 10.8 per 100k employees in the US in 2006). Let's say you want me to build a house for you for $200k. How much are you willing to pay for the same house at a fatality rate of 8? 5? 2? How much will it cost for me to reduce fatality by that much? Alternatively, how much do I need to pay my workers for a fatality rate of 10.8 vs. 8, or 5, or 2?

If you aren't willing to pay as much as it costs for added safety, and/or my workers aren't willing to take a pay cut for the increased safety, then I won't be in the construction business long as I won't have customers or employees. This is my decision as a business owner to make. While this may sound distasteful, it is up to the market (both of employers, employees, and customers) to find the appropriate balance.

Safest Within Given Constraints

In general, your goal should be to:

1. Identify the factors that have the biggest impact on safety
2. Inform management about the relative risk of each of those factors
3. Manage your work to maximize the safety given the constraints provided by your employer

Let's say you are a manager of a bunch of truck drivers. Management declined your suggestion to get the safer trucks because it is well beyond the budget that customers are willing to pay extra to for safety. You know that they won't pay the amount for the new trucks, but that doesn't mean they will totally ignore safety. You need to find a way to make truck driving as safe as possible given a limited budget.

Identify the Factors

Going through accident/incident logs for your employees, you identify the following major causes for accidents:

1. Lack of sleep
2. Inexperienced drivers
3. Exceeding the speed limit

Inform Management

You compile statistics on those three factors, including the causes, and some potential solutions. For instance:

1. Increasing staff to reduce extended periods on the road without rest
2. Providing prepaid coffee cards to staff to ensure they can always be caffeinated when they are on the road long-term
3. Hiring more experienced drivers by providing more competitive pay to them
4. Providing driving instruction to new employees to minimize rookie mistakes
5. Increasing driving times to minimize the incentive to speed

Work With What You're Given

So let's say the employer tells you that you have a budget of $X to try to tackle these issues. Your job is to make that budget of $X extend as far as possible to maximize the safety of your employees. You may not be able to do everything on your list, but that was a choice made by management that you can't do much about.

Part of working for other people is the need to compromise. It is their company, their money, and their rules. You can push to change them from within, but at the end of the day you have to work within the constraints given, or to quit. Realize that quitting will not solve the problem, it will just remove your responsibility for solving it.

Answer 4

One aspect not covered in the other good answers is perhaps your management really is considering safety. It is possible they have considered the issue of dangerous bugs, but consider that the software as is will still be safer than no software. Or releasing the software with some potential bugs will still save more lives than leaving it as it is until it is bug free.

If you are concerned about safety, it is worth going to your management and asking about it. Then listen. There are probably aspects that you haven't considered, that you may or may not agree with, but could be legitimate. Perhaps management is allowing technical debt or bugs for both business and safety reasons, not just immediate profit.

If you disagree, you're still able to consider fighting to lead for quality from the bottom, whistleblowing, or leaving. But you will also have more information for your ultimate decision.