Tell HN: Duty of care
I think the fact that software "engineering" (and, yes, those are meant to be scare quotes) doesn't have the same level of rigor of other engineering disciplines is what is truly at fault here.Most other professional engineering disciplines have clear, codified rules of ethics. If the Chairman of a public company told a building engineer "Can you get rid of a few of these bolts on this beam here? I don't like the way they look." he would rightfully be told to get bent by literally nearly any structural engineer. And it's not because structural engineers have vastly greater morals or thicker backbones. It's because they know they could, and should, lose their engineering license (not to mention be personally liable) if something were to go awry due to a clear violation of engineering standards.Kudos to you for sticking up for what was right, but it's still an overall process failure that this situation required you to have this backbone instead of being able to fall back on "What you're asking me to do is a clear violation of professional standards that could cause me to lose my license."