Ethics in My Engineering Career

It is our responsibility as a species to look forward to the attempts to improve, assist, or modify

in a positive way how we live. At times these goals can be forgotten for any number of reasons,

but it is the purpose of ethics to bring a moral standard to the table.

In today’s political climate, it is very difficult to not reach a situation where many believe

in ideas that others deem false. During my own internship, I felt the uneasiness between

certain groups in the office and that goes against my own moral code and the code of ethics. In

my experience, it is liberating to be able to form your own opinion and be able to voice it and to

have others agree with you, but in the same regard, you cannot ignore the counter argument

that others can and most likely will make against you. The moment your opinions threaten or

harm the lives that others have crafted for themselves though are where opinions no longer

matter. It is the job of everyone to make all feel included welcomed and that they are as much

of a part of the team as any other member. Through my own experience, when there was

racism in my workplace between coworkers, I first consulted my boss about the issues and the

took on the action from that point on. It is our job to help fix the wrongs in the most civilized

way possible and with as much respect we can give both parties in these situations. During the

class, we talked about how most issues are not cut and dry like many would like to believe. The

grey area of engineering is where the most decisions must be made. One example we talked

about was the use of data tracking in apps and whether the fact that they’re hiding the fact that

they are collecting it for their own use. One side of the coin is that they’re using that data to

make the app run and perform better, so more customers are happy. The
other side of the coin is that we as users don’t know how much or what exactly they are taking

at all. A real-life example is an app many students use that gives you points for locking your

phone while on campus. These points then go ahead and give you discounts on local food,

online shopping, etc. The argument here is they are paying you for your data and whether or

not many users understand. One very important piece of the engineering code of ethics is

number 7 from 7.8 Our code of ethics, which in short is to use honest and give productive

criticism of technical work as well as acknowledging errors. Professionals in industries now are

very skilled and are very competitive, and because of this criticism can be received as doubt

about their abilities. It is

important to realize that giving and receiving criticism is not to insult one’s flaws but to point

them out so they can be fixed either in another iteration or just to prevent the same issue from

happening again. It can tie into code number 9 which is to avoid injuring others at all costs.

Looking at this systematically, if an individual design a medical device that helps diagnose brain

tumors before they become harmful, and the machine works perfectly 80 percent of the time,

but the other times the machine can harm the patient and possibly the user. It is the

responsibility of the testing engineers to give critical feedback and it is the responsibility of the

design team to work to fix or redesign the entire product. If either does not do their job

correctly much more people could get injured, therefore not following code 9 of the code of

ethics. Taking the same situation if the design team doesn’t fix what the testing team deems as
fatal flaws, it becomes their job to let upper-level management know what the problems are. If

they too decide to move forward with the project and not fix the flaws, then those engineers

then have a duty to let the public know about the dangers of the product. After which they

have done all they can, it would then be the job of the consumers not to buy and use the

product and demand answers for why such a flaw was made at all. Number 10 of the code of

ethics sums up this point, that it is the responsibility of all engineers to assist those who are not

following the code to bring them back within the guild lines we have set for everyone’s safety

and acceptance.