Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've worked in these enterprise organizations for a long time. They don't run on common sense, or even what one might consider "business sense". Their existing incentives create bizarre behavior. For example, you might think "if a big security exploit happens, the stock price might tank" . So if they value the stock price, they'll focus on security, right?. In reality what they do is focus on burying the evidence of…
Probably there should be an independent body that oversees postmortems on tech issues, with the ability to suggest changes. This is what airlines face during crash investigations and often new rules are put in place (e.g., don’t let the shift manager self-certify his own work in the incident where the pilot’s window popped off). How this would look like with software companies, and what the bar is for being subject t…
"Proper" engineering disciplines have similar systems like the Professional Engineer cert via the NSPE that requires designs be signed off. If you had the requirement that all software engineers (now with the certification actually bestowing them the proper title of 'engineer') sign off on their design, you could prevent the company from just finding someone else more unscrupulous to push that update or whatever through. If the entirety of the department or company is employing properly certificated people, they'd be stuck actually doing it the right way.
That's their incentive to do it correctly: sign your name to it, or lose your license, and just for drama's sake, don't collect $200, directly to jail. For the companies, employ properly licensed engineers, or risk unlimited downside liability when shit goes sideways, similar to what might happen if an engineering firm built a shoddy bridge.
Would a firm that peddles some sort of CRUD app need to go through all of this? If it handles toxic data like payments or health data or other PII, sure. Otherwise, probably not, just like you have small contracting outfits that build garden sheds or whatever being a bit different than those that maintain, say, cooling systems for nuclear plants. Perhaps a law might be written to include companies that work in certain industries or business lines to compel them to do this.