this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2025
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Programming
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Politics has no place in engineering disciplines. Imagine if we talked about building bridges like this. "Sorry your entire family died when the bridge failed. My boss has an ego and we have to use the shitty bolts he designed. I'm just doing my job"
Granted not all projects carry this degree of risk but we shouldn't normalize sub standard practice. Long term risk is generated by bad code which can be and often is detrimental to the profitablity of a project. One of your jobs as a software developer is to be able to communicate this effectively with management. There are cost implications to churning out shitty code.
Bad form > poor product > unsatisfied users > loss in sales to competitors
I don't get what your bridge example is supposed to show, nor what normalizing substandard practice has to do with politics or lack thereof.
Depending on where you look there's plenty of shoddy construction work and cutting corners for cost, big projects are notorious for taking longer and costing more in the end. Construction had more time to develop and be regulated, and has more physical limitations compared to software development. Both, in the end, can be (theoretically) held accountable before court.
Isn't this politics? Why are you saying politics has no place in engineering principles?
Software engineers are much more replaceable than construction engineers/architects, both in-discipline and with less expertise.
I do my part in what I can influence and control, delivering good and sound products, but it's obvious depending on individuality doesn't work across our whole industry.
/edit: The linked article talks about how in-company politics are necessary to coordinate and deliver features. I don't see that addressed here either? How would you deliver - taking the example from the article - Latex in Markdown on GitHub without politics?
Communication ≠ politics.
Communication in engineering should rely on empirical data not personal opinion or vibes.
The post above only has one sentence where they make a unsupported claim that being involved in politics was necessary to have completed the feature.
The bridge example is to show that personal opinion has no place in projects and that workers should not capitulate to their superiors when they determine unsafe situations are occuring. The "shoddy bolt my boss designed" would be a stand in for whatever crummy practice people are being political about in a software project. From a shitty tech stack to bad project management practices.
Ego and politics is the death of a project.
Except, how do you convince all the other engineers the tech stack is both shitty and that switching off is worth the switching costs? That your data is empirical and also not the "lies, damned lies and statistics" thing where you cherry pick data in your favor so you can look empirical when you are actually just going off your own vibes and ego? Even if your intentions are pure, others might not think so (whether because they have ulterior motives of their own or not).
Unfortunately, that is politics.
That's just miss representing the data for political reasons. Again it's just politics which has no place in engineering
I think as long as there are 2 people on earth who do not have perfect trust in each other, there will be politics.
Speaking up against the manager is politics though.
As is almost all the case when people say they don't want "politics" in things. Politics just means whatever they don't like/find valuable.
Politics is about influencing other people. Engineering is about managing constraints. Sometimes these constraints come from other people. If you want to influence a constraint you don’t like, then you often have to influence other people (i.e. politics).
I don’t see anything strange with this.
I think you are pretty much agreeing with my message.
Yes, I’m just elaborating.
No and you prove the parent post right. Politics is the matter of the city (or in this case, the matters of the company/office).
Influencing people is a side product of having to reach an agreement between parties, and if you successfully influence the right people, more shit gets done.
IMO, telling the manager of their mistake is not politics.
Colluding with others to make said manager lose standing in front of their superior, is politics.
https://www.theblackproject.net/opinion-resources/like-it-or-not-everything-is-political