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Boeing's 737 Max software outsourced to lower-paid engineers

bloomberg.com

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Re: Boeing's 737 Max software outsourced to lower-paid engineers

#61
"In offices across from Seattle’s Boeing Field, recent college graduates employed by the Indian software developer HCL Technologies Ltd. occupied several rows of desks, said Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer who worked in a flight-test group that supported the Max.

The coders from HCL were typically designing to specifications set by Boeing. Still, “it was controversial because it was far less efficient than Boeing engineers just writing the code,” Rabin said. Frequently, he recalled, “it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly.”

Boeing’s cultivation of Indian companies appeared to pay other dividends. In recent years, it has won several orders for Indian military and commercial aircraft, such as a $22 billion one in January 2017 to supply SpiceJet Ltd. That order included 100 737-Max 8 jets and represented Boeing’s largest order ever from an Indian airline, a coup in a country dominated by Airbus."

Re: Boeing's 737 Max software outsourced to lower-paid engineers

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understand the sentiment, but can anyone be sure that Airbus isn't doing something similar.

Irrelevant. If Airbus is doing the same, then they are also dead to me.

Dead meaning you won't fly any more? (beneficial for the environment)

Re: Boeing's 737 Max software outsourced to lower-paid engineers

#63
post #40
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The software performed exactly as designed. The problem is a faulty spec for how it should behave. The software is pretty much incidental.

You are correct, however... I can't imagine a single engineer with any kind of proper education (formal or not) implementing any piece of software or hardware without thinking:"One sensor? Really? What's the failure rate on this thing". That might have been enough to stop the chan of events.

You get $9 for hypothetical blood splattered on your hand or you get worse than nothing for nothing

Re: Boeing's 737 Max software outsourced to lower-paid engineers

#64

I’m not discounting the possibility of bad workmanship by Boeing. However “temporary workers making as little as $9 an hour to develop and test software” does sound to me like the reporter might have found some highly paid mechanical Turk style employees given the job of battering against a solidly built piece of software just because there would be a possibility of finding a problem. If the sentence was “the mean sa…

The article mentioned recent grads (working in Seattle for an India-based company) who wrote code on specifications, not “mechanical turk”-style employees. It was followed by a quote from a former Boeing software engineer affirming this.

Is your issue just with the amount ($9) being paid?

Re: Boeing's 737 Max software outsourced to lower-paid engineers

#65
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The final verdict isn't in, but it appears to have been a systems engineering problem with a software component.

The software performed exactly as designed. The problem is a faulty spec for how it should behave. The software is pretty much incidental.

Software is an integral part of modern flight. Somewhere up the chain, there’s a highly-paid software engineer/manager who helped design and signed off on the spec.

Re: Boeing's 737 Max software outsourced to lower-paid engineers

#67
post #40
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The software performed exactly as designed. The problem is a faulty spec for how it should behave. The software is pretty much incidental.

You are correct, however... I can't imagine a single engineer with any kind of proper education (formal or not) implementing any piece of software or hardware without thinking:"One sensor? Really? What's the failure rate on this thing". That might have been enough to stop the chan of events.

Or may be they pointed it out but got reply "just work as said, you're just $9 engineer"? Or they were never told about the exact purpose?

Re: Boeing's 737 Max software outsourced to lower-paid engineers

#68
post #36

Money saved by firing experienced engs and outsourcing the development Why is that so hard to understand? Massive fail at risk management maybe?

The risk management is being TBTF. In a nationalist era, is the US going to buy planes from Airbus, or are they going to bail out Boeing?

For others wondering: TBTF = too big to fail

Re: Boeing's 737 Max software outsourced to lower-paid engineers

#69

There are some Boeing executives who should be making $0.35 an hour in prison.

I don't even want them in or near the prison. I just want the salary/bonus they made while employed by Boeing, making the decisions that led to this.

And give them to the family of the victims, ON TOP of whatever punitive damage Boeing will be paying.

Holy crappus, what was Boeing thinking?

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