Cisco and Juniper need to die as entities like 5 years ago. They’re single-handedly holding back all of networking from entering the modern era of computing.
Honestly can’t elaborate too much as I was only a junior network guy at best and it’s been a few years since that. But coming from a world of infrastructure as code and CI/CD deployment strategies, the shit we had to do to manage changes on Cisco and juniper switches was ridiculous. It was like stepping back into the stone age.
You must not work in enterprise IT. Every lower level network engineer says this until they gain more skills and experience with them. Then they realize the full extent of features Cisco and Juniper support that others don’t
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.
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.
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.
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”
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.
Ofc it’s Cisco
did they change careers after that? I would want to work on a farm and touch grass every day with my new friends, the animals.
Poor product testing doesn’t mean engineer hadn’t make a stupid and serious mistake.
They would have had to pick an RJ45 with that kind of boot (there are other kinds) in that particular port during testing. Or, perhaps think more and say “hmm I wonder if that button is in a bad place”
From this design flaw we can determine that Cisco doesn’t use Ethernet cables with protective boots
