repeatable software engineer life

This post is to complain, complain, complain...

I'm a software engineer, senior, I'd say, and my continuous gripe for at least a few years is about software development cycles, methodologies and implementations. And I'm contracting ...., no strings attached.
I would like to work in a real "software engineering" environment, people caring about what they deliver, how they deliver and proud of their work. It didn't happen for a long, long time. People are complacent, eager for a short, good buck, learning the politic ladder in corporations and teaming for a net social environment where their laziness to be protected.

I had stepped up in a small company, manufacturing an embedded hardware device, struggling to implement a perpetual tcp/ip protocol for communication. I don't want to mention about sophisticated and complicated development cycles here, I want to expose simple, normal ways (agile) to lighten your life. But let's continue, it's hard to debug embedded systems, tools are precarious, software is rudimentary, you have to build your own tools or adapt what you have to simulate field deployments.

BUT YOU HAVE TO TEST IT THE SMART WAY!

Imagine my face when asking "how do you test this protocol?" and receiving the answer - manually, using four people for the input devices. I was bewildered, smashed and an image of a reversed machine intelligence forcing people to play as puppets for its functionality dangled in my mind.

Dear software coworkers, please read some papers, read some articles, use your brain, life is too short for THESE STUPID DECISIONS MADE AT THE MANAGERS' LEVEL!

What I've changed in this company ? Small things like building an automated protocol software program to replace what all those four testers tried to do (for at least as 25 USD/hour). That tool was used to simulate a lot of delays, lost packets, repeated packets and so long. Was a testing tool, a stress tool, a FREEDOM TOOL.

to be continued ....

P.S I have a lot of other stories, but I would like to continue with the mentioned company, it’s too dear to me.

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