Engineer Alice is the only person incompetent at their job in this conversation. If "irrepressibly existential sigh" is how you argue security with your bosses then maybe you're not senior enough to be in meetings like these.
The Manager and QA Engineers here depend on the expertise of the engineers. If the engineers fail to communicate key details of the situation, then that's on them. Sure, the boss is still at fault for depending on a shitty engineer for decision making, but that's all.
If you answer with the existential sigh, you’ve had at least 20 conversations with a similar outcome before. Nobody arrives at a new company that jaded.
I see your point and I suspect that that's what the author meant.
At the same time, I know lots of, well, arrogant nerds who get into "existential sigh" mode as soon as someone with less technical skill than them says something stupid. That's more how I read it.
> The Manager and QA Engineers here depend on the expertise of the engineers.
Both should be sufficiently competent and knowledgeable to know this is a terrible idea, especially in the long run. Otherwise they do not understand the task they have been given. So no, Alice is not the only incompetent one here.
The Manager and QA Engineers here depend on the expertise of the engineers. If the engineers fail to communicate key details of the situation, then that's on them. Sure, the boss is still at fault for depending on a shitty engineer for decision making, but that's all.