You do not need formal training from a compsci program or similar before you're allowed to be a developer. But sometimes, when your job role already contains "engineer" in the title, people think you can handle any engineering task. As we continue our review of the best of 2020, here's a tale of misapplied human resources. Original --Remy

Oil well

Bruce worked for a small engineering consultant firm providing custom software solutions for companies in the industrial sector. His project for CompanyX involved data consolidation for a new oil well monitoring system. It was a two-phased approach: Phase 1 was to get the raw instrument data into the cloud, and Phase 2 was to aggregate that data into a useful format.

Phase 1 was completed successfully. When it came time to write the business logic for aggregating the data, CompanyX politely informed Bruce's team that their new in-house software team would take over from here.

Bruce and his team smelled trouble. They did everything they could think of to persuade CompanyX not to go it alone when all the expertise rested on their side. However, CompanyX was confident they could handle the job, parting ways with handshakes and smiles.

Although Phase 2 was officially no longer on his plate, Bruce had a suspicion borne from experience that this wasn't the last he'd hear from CompanyX. Sure enough, a month later he received an urgent support request via email from Rick, an electrical engineer.

We're having issues with our aggregated data not making it into the database. Please help!!

Rick Smith
LEAD SOFTWARE ENGINEER

"Lead Software Engineer!" Bruce couldn't help repeating out loud. Sadly, he'd seen this scenario before with other clients. In a bid to save money, their management would find the most sciency people on their payroll and would put them in charge of IT or, worse, programming.

Stifling a cringe, Bruce dug deeper into the email. Rick had written a Python script to read the raw instrument data, aggregate it in memory, and re-insert it into a table he'd added to the database. Said script was loaded with un-parameterized queries, filters on non-indexed fields, and SELECT * FROM queries. The aggregation logic was nothing to write home about, either. It was messy, slow, and a slight breeze could take it out. Bruce fired up the SQL profiler and found a bigger issue: a certain query was failing every time, throwing the error Cannot insert the value NULL into column 'requests', table 'hEvents'; column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails.

Well, that seemed straightforward enough. Bruce replied to Rick's email, asking if he knew about the error.

Rick's reply came quickly, and included someone new on the email chain. Yes, but we couldn't figure it out, so we were hoping you could help us. Aaron is our SQL expert and even he's stumped.

Product support was part of Bruce's job responsibilities. He helpfully pointed out the specific query that was failing and described how to use the SQL profiler to pinpoint future issues.

Unfortunately, CompanyX's crack new in-house software team took this opportunity to unload every single problem they were having on Bruce, most of them just as basic or even more basic than the first. The back-and-forth email chain grew to epic proportions, and had less to do with product support than with programming education. When Bruce's patience finally gave out, he sent Rick and Aaron a link to the W3 schools SQL tutorial page. Then he talked to his manager. Agreeing that things had gotten out of hand, Bruce's manager arranged for a BA to contact CompanyX to offer more formal assistance. A teleconference was scheduled for the next week, which Bruce and his manager would also be attending.

When the day of the meeting came, Bruce and his associates dialed in—but no one from CompanyX did. After some digging, they learned that the majority of CompanyX's software team had been fired or reassigned. Apparently, the CompanyX project manager had been BCC'd on Bruce's entire email chain with Rick and Aaron. Said PM had decided a new new software team was in order. The last Bruce heard, the team was still "getting organized." The fate of Phase 2 remains unknown.

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