Hacker News Reader

Meritocracy?

Different groups define the goals different.

Sales/financial: make as much money as possible

Engineering: make the best product possible

Old Boeing was successful with the later group in charge, new Boeing (post MD merger) is the former.

Merit makes sense when you want to promote hard work, talent, and creativity—and we need all that. Engineering meritocracy is how we build bridges, go to space, and dig under mountains.

Engineering supremacy in that context means that if engineering says no, it’s definite.

What Boeing needs is QA supremacy: nobody wants them to be particularly creative, original, or unusually hard-working when doing audits; they need to be thorough and systematic. We need to make sure that their voice isn’t challenged.

I'm pushing back a bit on that? QA needs to be challenged, like any part of a company. They also need to have the last word on any decision on stuff that has a potential to ruin lives.

That’s part of them being thorough.

Maybe your view of merit is too narrow, or mine is too broad.

QA supremacy makes sense, but it relies on the merits of QA (that QA are competing to be the best) to avoid false positives/negatives rather than rubber stamping, no?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com