>No. Your job is to do what the company pays you for.
Yes and no. Ultimately, your solution will live on after you. Even if theres no way for it to backfire publicly, your coworkers and future employees have to deal with it. It can absolutely ruin your reputation and cost you future employment. Admittedly its much easier for a contractor to draw a red line, but I had done this as far back as my first full time IT job, setting boundaries with the owner of that business as to what is and is not practical and achievable.
> It can absolutely ruin your reputation and cost you future employment.
If your solution does not meet the company's needs, yes, this is certainly true. But I never said you should do something that does not meet the company's needs. I just pointed out that meeting the company's needs, even if you add the qualifier that you are going to do that in a way that is professional and does not create unnecessary burdens for others, still does not always mean "write great software". It means finding the optimal solution for the particular problem.
> setting boundaries with the owner of that business as to what is and is not practical and achievable.
And in cases where "write great software" is not practical and achievable (and yes, there will be plenty of such cases), that would mean telling the owner that it is not practical and achievable to write great software to meet this particular requirement, and recommending a different solution. Which is what I said.
> Hey I wrote that software, you know, from last years massive security breach.
Like company policies can be wrong. They are often wrong. It wont matter to your reputation that some CEO accepted the risk and asked you to ship before code review.
Yes and no. Ultimately, your solution will live on after you. Even if theres no way for it to backfire publicly, your coworkers and future employees have to deal with it. It can absolutely ruin your reputation and cost you future employment. Admittedly its much easier for a contractor to draw a red line, but I had done this as far back as my first full time IT job, setting boundaries with the owner of that business as to what is and is not practical and achievable.