Well back to cars but non-engineer lawyer Ralph Nader needlessly killed the Corvair too. Had one. Never flipped it. Do believe the MAX had a software problem though and maybe more. I sure ain’t gonna fly in one. Maybe going to cause a similar fate like Takata.
Keep in mind there are cheap parts and there is poor assembly. Both affected by best practices. The poor assembly problems ride along until the cheap parts take over.
Getting lax with your assembly problems will kill a good car more quickly than cheap parts. Keeping on top of the assembly process is important. And it takes management commitment and diligence.
Daimler had that discipline. Fiat does not. GM found it but has been cheaping out on parts.
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This has been a major problem in engineering for decades. Many engineers don’t want to move up into management. And if they do - within 5 years their skill sets are rusty and in many cases obsolete. I will NEVER be a manager for a large corporation because that’s all I would ever do. I still stay technical and manager.
Non technical managers can go either way. They either listen to the engineers or not. The good ones will. It’s also one reason why the Agile development process has engineers running the meetings. Management is NOT part of the Agile process. The Agile team reports to management what they’ve done and show proof. Managers will set direction and priorities, but everything else is left up to the engineers.
Over the years I’ve turned down jobs because the management structure were all business majors. Most of the time it’s a train wreck waiting to happen.
Back to cars: At a less technical scale…look at dealerships these days. Years ago the service writers knew something about cars. Today - most wouldn’t know how to add anti-freeze. They are salesmen…PERIOD. Dealerships near me advertise for service writers all the time. There is no requirement for car knowledge…Associates degree in Business is all they ask.
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I hear you Mike, loud and clear… I’m in exactly the same boat professionally
Good ones will pick up some knowledge as they go, as my boss says “I know just enough to be dangerous” 
Still, I would not expect the mechanic’s knowledge level here, only gliding on the surface.
When I think about managers and administrators who don’t listen to the knowledgeable personnel they manage, I am reminded of a student that was in a mathematics course for elementary teachers that I taught. This student had been failing the class for the entire semester. However, he managed to barely pass the final examination. I gave him a “D-” for the course. When he received his grades for the semester, he came in to my office and argued that he should have at least a “C”. He explained to me that he really didn’t need to know the material taught in the course as he wasn’t going to be an elementary teacher but was planning on be a principal and didn’t need to know anything. When I explained to him that he would be making mathematics curriculum decisions and interviewing candidates for teaching positions, he said, “I won’t have to do that. I’ll appoint committees to do those tasks”. I told him that I would not change the grade. He then said, “If you don’t change my grade, I am going to jump.out the window”. I walked over and raised the window in my 2nd story office. He walked out the door.
I often used this story the first day of classes that I taught to let them know that I award grades on the basis of performance and not on perceived need. After I related the incident to one class, one student spoke up and said, “What would you have done if the student had jumped out the window?”. I replied, “I would have called the coroner”
The MBA degree originally was intended for engineers who were going into management positions to understand about working with people. Today, it seems as though one can get a degree in management without knowing much about the area they manage, much like my former student who didn’t think he needed to know anything to be a principal.
Going back to the original post, I agree that a minivan would do the job. I have owned five minivans since 1991. They are great for transporting people and moving objects. I manage a chamber orchestra and have been able to haul a set of four timpani in my Sienna minivan.
That sounds like something my first high school principal would have done. Maybe it was the same guy. Everyone from us students to the faculty was happy to see the back of him.
@shadowfax. Often, an engineer who loves his work designing things is reluctant to take an administrative position. A good teacher may not want to move up to being a principal. I loved teaching and doing research. I was asked to consider being chair of my department and I refused. I was earning a salary that allowed me to live comfortably, so the extra money wasn’t an enticement. I was told that I was needed to unite the department. That I could have accomplished: the entire department would have been united against me.
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That’s me. I was a manager for a short while. I still had my engineering job and added management responsibilities. No extra pay, though. I had a good group to work with, but I didn’t like the administrative aspect of the job. Why should I do stuff I don’t like if it won’t affect my pay?
I don’t disagree with any of this but still sometimes you have to over-ride a cautious engineer. We were absolutely over-loaded and under water with work and my computer designer was working on a new computer system to handle the workload. Everything looked pretty good but he wanted more time for testing etc. He didn’t like it but I said let’s risk it, nothing to lose, because we’ll be dead anyway if it doesn’t work. It worked and was a life saver but he would have putzed with it for another month or two.
He might have done that after the delay too. That’s often more a personality thing than an engineering thing. If ground rules are set for measuring test success, it can reduce release objections. You may have had those rules in place already.
The only reason I’m a manager now is because 40% of my work is still technical. We’re a small enough company that I do that. A large company and I’d be 100% management.
When I first started in this field…there was no technical path beyond Sr Software Engineer. To move up you had to go into management. There were no other options. Not the case now. In some companies (like mine) there are at least 3 levels beyond Sr Software Engineer. The highest (Sr Consultant Engineer) is the same pay scale as me (Director of software development).