HN user
the developers
No, blame management. Not until programmers have a union masquerading as a professional association that backs us up, like the AMA or the ABA, and we enjoy much greater autonomy and a much stronger position from which to say "no," should we be made to shoulder the blame along side management.
It's free labor, and companies love free labor. They claim to value candidates that produce open source, but somehow those who toil night after night on their passion projects never seem to see any job offers materializing as a result. At best they get recruiter spam (for which many here argue they should be grateful) inviting them to submit themselves to a whiteboarding carried out by an arrogant 20-something often fresh out of college and eager to assert their dominance.
It's due to our poor social skills. Flight attendants successfully lobbied the media and public to refer to them that way and not as stewardesses/stewards to improve the esteem of the profession, but we're so clueless that we don't object at all when journalists refer to us as coders, a term also used for medical clerical workers. Many here will even argue with you that it's not derogatory.