Is that the engineers fault? Or is that the people who are supposed to check for usability after the engineer is done designing the functional aspects? Because it’s not usually an engineer’s job to do this…
Basic product testing is the foundation of manufacturing, an error like this doesn’t get all the way through production and it still be just the engineers fault.
Checking for usability is one of the key parts of design iteration, which is done by product engineers. Source: am product engineer
Former mechanical design engineer checking in as well: can confirm, the engineer’s fault here.
You don’t just design it just to work, a hobbyist can do that.
Edit: Not saying I have never made a mistake, everyone makes mistakes. And of course in a proper (especially big) design department someone always cross checks your work, so there must’ve been multiple people to blame. But mistakes happen and that alone is no reason to fire someone.
In my first job a senior told me that you will experience making an expensive mistake and that it’ll be a good lesson (I did).
Yes, it’s the engineer’s fault. OTOH, it’s QA’s fault for not catching that mistake, and the company’s fault for releasing a product that wasn’t properly tested.
We’re talking about Cisco here, a company that sells millions of units. The more units you expect to sell, the more extensive your QA procedures need to be. It’s not like this is their first piece of networking gear either. Maybe they’ve never had this specific error before, but surely they’ve had errors caused by people using a variety of different kinds of ethernet cables. I would imagine they have tests where they plug a dozen different kinds of ethernet cables into every new product they make just to ensure that a cable that has given them problems before doesn’t have issues with this new piece of gear.
When a problem like this is caught by QA people, it’s mostly the engineer’s fault for a design mistake. When these errors are caught in the wild by customers, it’s the company’s fault for a screw-up somewhere in their QA / test / release procedures.
They probably reused a PCB from another model that used a paperclip hole reset. They duplicated the design, sent it for testing, and came back with “everything is great, but make the reset a push button before you ship it.” Engineering probably said “ok. But it will need to go back for usability testing” and sales said “fuck that, send it”
Yes it is the engineers fault, but even then there should have been multiple people that should have caught such an issue along the way.
As an engineer, I agree.
You cannot be a layer of security if your attitude is, “this is someone else’s problem”.
The swiss cheese model of security is what I go by. Yes, no one is perfect, but that’s precisely why every single person needs to actually give a damn. (and why people should be paid enough to care) The more layers of protection from catastrophe, the better.
Giving in because others are involved is literally Bystander Effect-ing your job effectiveness. Only idiots should be OK with, “this is someone else’s fault.”
No, this is also other peoples’ fault, but make no mistake: the engineer is on that list.
It’s very strange engineer, if he doesn’t aware of RJ45 connector form-factors.
Hey I’m not absolving the engineer for not doing basic interference checks but I’m saying it’s also somebody else’s job I’m sure, Cisco’s not a small company.
