11–20 of 520 posts
Used some of the more advanced features in git to delete commit history and cover up bunch of illegal activity shortly before an acquisition. I used to feel really bad about this, but apparently there are whole teams dedicated to this sort of "cleanup" in M&A nowadays. Now I just feel bad about everything!
While working at a services / consulting company, I've been privy to cases where we put our own interests over the client's, essentially getting them to pay us to screw them over.
I once got pulled into an arbitration hearing to explain how certain code functions operated. While not necessarily unethical it was a moral moment because I knew the inquiry came with the loaded intent to twist whatever explanation I gave into the worst possible extreme. Sure enough that's exactly what happened and a really hard working and honest developer lost their job so an executive could save face. Left that c…
While working at a services / consulting company, I've been privy to cases where we put our own interests over the client's, essentially getting them to pay us to screw them over.
I once got pulled into an arbitration hearing to explain how certain code functions operated. While not necessarily unethical it was a moral moment because I knew the inquiry came with the loaded intent to twist whatever explanation I gave into the worst possible extreme. Sure enough that's exactly what happened and a really hard working and honest developer lost their job so an executive could save face. Left that c…
Without giving away more details than you feel comfortable with, could you share more about what the developer was fired for and how it made that executive safe face?
The feature worked as designed, and this exec was the one who pushed for it to go to market despite all warnings that a review of the depth of exposed data was needed first. Nothing was ever leaked, as I mentioned it worked exactly as we were instructed to build by the product managers and our engineering lead.
The outcome is the outcome scoped for.
Fwiw many engineers left after that moment. We were already at odds with leadership and when they showed their colors in that incident it resulted in nearly the entire engineering department bailing.
This never made it publicly, it was an internal product demo to the whole company leading up to launch. To my knowledge no customers or media outlet caught wind of the transactions or the internal coup that resulted.