Not a pilot - software engineer that started my career at a small company that produced hardware-in-the-loop testing and certification solutions for major aerospace and defense organizations. I experienced first-hand the sort of pressures and poor communications/management between entities that leads to audits/test results/certifications be pushed through too fast and in incomplete forms and to be honest it made me wonder if we wouldn't start to see failures like this tragedy unfold in the near future.
From the information available my gut feeling tells me that the systems design on the MAX was intentional, not an instance of well-meaning engineers making a mistake. There's the change of the rate of trim applied made late in the testing stages (from 0.6 units to 2.5 units per time period?) and the seeming lack of any sort of sanity checks in the MCAS system that just seems impossible to miss. There are very basic things that can be done in software even beyond bringing in more sensors to fall back on such as checking the values that come before (is it ever possible for AOA to jump over from 14 to 75 degrees in under a second?). This is something that should have been glaringly obvious to all involved in the process and if there was genuinely no bad intentions on Boeing's part then what this suggests is serious organizational rot. In either case I would hesitate to put confidence in other aspects of the design if this system is such a mess.
I've yet to see a satisfactory explanation behind the changes to the trim cutout switches. Sure, I've read that they are always used at the same time but how does that justify neutering the behavior but leaving the two switches except for different labels? In what world does it make sense to get rid of the ability to cutout the plane's automation (STS, MCAS, probably others that I'm not familiar with) while still allowing the pilot to enter trim commands using the stab motor? What does this improve upon the original design of the switches? A change like this involves multiple engineering departments in order to implement and everything is documented and cross checked along the way. I'm very curious as to what the justification is here.
And the mysterious short blips of trim shortly before MCAS dealt it's final blow... From following along in this thread and others I've come to the knowledge that trimming away pressure in the control column is one of the most basic aspects of flying that there is. The failures to get completely back into trim and then the final blips suggest to me that something else is wrong. From what I see other pilots saying it sounds like the equivalent of someone in the path of an oncoming semi-truck applying very slight turns of the steering wheel to get out of the way (sorry for the clumsy metaphor). If airline training has taken such a deep dive in quality over the years as to lead to pilots that don't have supposed basic airmanship skills, doesn't this imply that we should expect to see a steep increase in the amount of pilot errors leading to accidents?
So far they have been confined to two hulls of the same make and model within the first years of it entering into flight...
If you read all of that then thanks for taking the time to consider the viewpoint of someone from outside the profession. I've become somewhat obsessed with this MAX fiasco because just like it highlights the importance of airmanship to some pilots here, to me it highlights the importance of systems design and good engineering practices in the software and technology world. It is cheap and easy to alter products by manipulating lines of code but we must keep in mind that the impact that it has on the word is just as real as that of the other more "material" engineering professions.