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Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

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Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#41

Post by eightysixfour »

jws wrote: post #34
amluto wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But ("FSD" excepted) they spend more of their attention on what really matters: treating their vehicle as a modern electronic device. Yet even Tesla does a rather bad job at this — they consider it to be a modern electronic device and ignore the wheels. OTA updates regularly change the UI in a way that is difficult and dangerous to learn when the wheels are spinning. Even when familiar with it, the very basics are…

It is well worth any Tesla driver's time to spend two minutes reading the list of voice commands. Once you have a grip on the vocabulary and structure you can just tell the car to do what you want for dozens of common tasks. (Hint: It's a "seat warmer", not a "butt heater".) That's the good news, the bad news is that I still haven't figure out how to turn off the stupid cowbell when I accidentally bonk the right leve…

> It's a "seat warmer", not a "butt heater".

“Heat my ass” works fine for me.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#42

Post by hnthrow29475792 »

adventured wrote: post #11

Producing really good software is really hard. Here's a tip for all the backwards big companies in Europe: pay your software engineers a lot more. Whatever you're paying now, increase it by 2x-3x. If you want the best, you're going to have to pay for it, or you're going to suffer the predictably mediocre results indefinitely (to the benefit of Tesla & Co.; Tesla's sales are now up to $67 billion; that's closing in on…

Just paying 3x isn’t the complete story however. It means you might attract better applicants and you’ll have a better chance of closing them, but in the middle is your interview process, staffed by incumbents, who likely have no idea how to evaluate this talent for you. Additionally, an overnight change of this magnitude to your compensation practices in these teams creates substantial pay equity issues versus existing employees which will, at best, result in manageable increases in attrition, and at worst will cause your software department to implode and likely a 9-18 month period where very little gets delivered as you rebuild (from scratch).

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#43

Post by mkl95 »

The state of European software is not good. The strategy at the average European company is to spend most of the money on a sales people army and have a few engineers build the product.

This strategy often fires back as the customer base grows, because customers want software that actually works. Paying your tech debt is not feasible when your engineering department is small and they are also expected to build new features nonstop.

Unfortunately, most of these companies react by partially or completely outsourcing their bad software to bodyshops at developing countries. Those companies maintain the initial quality at best -which was already poor- and at worst they keep making it worse until it becomes unmaintainable and it collapses on itself.

The biggest problem of them all is Europe's failure to learn from its own mistakes. This pattern has existed for decades now but it keeps getting worse.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#44

Post by ceeplusplus »

geodel wrote: post #38
ceeplusplus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And non-FAANG type IT worker are also paid relatively high at the cost of other workers living perilous lives. Those workers live perilous lives because cities refuse to build enough housing, not because a few workers have it good. > those outrageously high FAANG salaries occurs because of 4) Much more generous VC funding leading to more competition between firms for SWEs, as a result of a more risk seeking / risk…

> SWEs at companies like Walmart Labs make much more than SWEs in Europe. Good. Find out how Walmart retail workers are doing. And Housing in US is lot cheaper for majority of people. > ... risk tolerant culture with stronger work ethic Yup, from Uber to Wework and dozen more food delivery service did awesome job with generous money in creating enduring businesses with strong work ethics.

> Good. Find out how Walmart retail workers are doing.

Plenty of other examples of well paid workers and US SWEs paid more than EU SWEs. UPS teamsters are unionized. AT&T technicians are unionized. Both pay their SWEs more than EU companies by a substantial margin.

> did awesome job with generous money in creating enduring businesses with strong work ethics.

You could name companies which are actually changing how (European) companies operate. Zoom, Slack, SpaceX, Figma, the list goes on and on. None of which were started in Europe.

32 hours a week and 60k EUR/year doesn't cut it in a competitive market, and any founder will tell you that.

> And Housing in US is lot cheaper for majority of people.

Not in any major city. Clearly you don't live in the US.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#45

Post by [deleted] »

geodel wrote: post #38
ceeplusplus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And non-FAANG type IT worker are also paid relatively high at the cost of other workers living perilous lives. Those workers live perilous lives because cities refuse to build enough housing, not because a few workers have it good. > those outrageously high FAANG salaries occurs because of 4) Much more generous VC funding leading to more competition between firms for SWEs, as a result of a more risk seeking / risk…

> SWEs at companies like Walmart Labs make much more than SWEs in Europe. Good. Find out how Walmart retail workers are doing. And Housing in US is lot cheaper for majority of people. > ... risk tolerant culture with stronger work ethic Yup, from Uber to Wework and dozen more food delivery service did awesome job with generous money in creating enduring businesses with strong work ethics.

[deleted]

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#46

Post by gumby »

mkl95 wrote: post #43

The state of European software is not good. The strategy at the average European company is to spend most of the money on a sales people army and have a few engineers build the product. This strategy often fires back as the customer base grows, because customers want software that actually works. Paying your tech debt is not feasible when your engineering department is small and they are also expected to build new fe…

> The strategy at the average European company is to spend most of the money on a sales people army and have a few engineers build the product.

Did you mean "average European software company"? A lot of the German Mittelstand companies are the opposite. Instead they sell into a niche through trade shows (another thing probably going away).

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#47

Post by geodel »

chrisseaton wrote: post #27
geodel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should try to reconcile the facts that those outrageously high FAANG salaries occurs because of 1) Near monopoly in that sector 2) Excessive surveillance and tracking users 3) Increasing inequality between haves and have nots. And non-FAANG type IT worker are also paid relatively high at the cost of other workers living perilous lives. So unless Europeans really start cherishing these "values". They are not go…

Five separate companies cannot be described as having a meaningful monopoly between them. And there are hundreds of companies that pay at that level in the US, not just FAANG. Reality is European workers are under-paid, not US workers over-paid. Also curious what you think is different in Australia? Are software salaries there like in the US and above somewhere like London?

The question is why and how. There is no point is arguing "low" European salaries unless someone shows European companies are more profitable and they save a nice chunk of money by paying less to S/w engineers.

Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily. To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good quality software which many(not you) seems to be arguing here.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#48

Post by flyinglizard »

It’s not just the ID and electric stuff that VW messed up software on. I’ve heard the same complaints regarding Mk 8 GTI, a very petrol car. It’s just a systematic failure and I’m not the tiniest bit surprised. I can’t see how they come out of this easily being that their SW/HW platforms are probably rotten to the core, and in automotive it takes a product cycle to fix (5-7 years).

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#49

Post by gumby »

geodel wrote: post #30
762236 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish that car reviewers would do their job and be critical. They rarely mention how bad the modern cars are becoming.

Well, reviewers busy fiddling with ten thousand settings in 14 INCH TOUCHSCREEN. While 2021 model has only 12.4 inch screen. So new one is best thing that happened.

> Well, reviewers busy fiddling with ten thousand settings in 14 INCH TOUCHSCREEN.

Instead of looking at the road.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#50

Post by mkl95 »

gumby wrote: post #46
mkl95 wrote: post #43

The state of European software is not good. The strategy at the average European company is to spend most of the money on a sales people army and have a few engineers build the product. This strategy often fires back as the customer base grows, because customers want software that actually works. Paying your tech debt is not feasible when your engineering department is small and they are also expected to build new fe…

> The strategy at the average European company is to spend most of the money on a sales people army and have a few engineers build the product. Did you mean "average European software company"? A lot of the German Mittelstand companies are the opposite. Instead they sell into a niche through trade shows (another thing probably going away).

> Did you mean "average European software company"? A lot of the German Mittelstand companies are the opposite. Instead they sell into a niche through trade shows (another thing probably going away).

I do. My area has Mitteltstands as well, mostly in biochemistry. I had a bizarre experience interviewing for one of those where they posted a Python job offer but they actually wanted me to write Java and a dozen other things on top of it.

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