&gt; Presumably developers are the one&#x27;s estimating how long things take.<p>This is not meant as a slight: I think you&#x27;re grossly unfamiliar with software development outside of engineering-driven companies.<p>It&#x27;s pretty much a guarantee that product managers are deciding these estimates. They might confirm with the developers, but the conversation probably went something like this:<p>&quot;Does 3 weeks sound about right for this?&quot;<p>&quot;No, we&#x27;ll need 6&quot;<p>&quot;Why?&quot;<p>&quot;Safety checks&quot;<p>&quot;Ok, we don&#x27;t have 6 weeks. I can give you 4, but we&#x27;re just gonna have to make do.&quot;<p>Is it scary that conversation happened about a piece of medical software? Absolutely. Would I bet $1k that it happens frequently? Absolutely.<p>&gt; A reputable engineer wouldn&#x27;t design and build a bridge which might collapse<p>Rarely does a single engineer design a bridge nowadays, so corporate liability and reputation (good luck landing more contracts if your bridge collapses) is a huge factor in much of that beyond simple ethics.<p>I would be shocked if anything happened to Merge as a result of this, whereas a company who designed a faulty bridge would be sued into oblivion.<p>Further, professional engineering in the US is a whole different game that involves licensing and regulations specifically to avoid that situation. Software &quot;engineering&quot; has no such equivalent currently.<p>Pinning the blame on the peons is a sure-fire way to make sure this situation never changes.