Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

Post by lokar » Sun, Sep 04, 2022, 2:58 AM UTC

barbazoo wrote: post #68

gumby wrote: post #15

I've been following this debacle in the German press and I think there's a structural problem that they will struggle to dig their way out of. And by "they" I don't mean just VW, but much of European industry. Software is simply not valued in Europe, and not because there aren't amazing developers there -- there are many. But software isn't considered important Let's start with cars. Back before cars were just comput…

Pay aside, I wonder if the German automotive industry is just a particularly bad example. I've worked in Germany, Switzerland, Canada and now for an American company and I found that software companies aren't not that much different. I've also worked for an automotive supplier in Germany and can understand where parent is coming from.

Post by zxienin » Sun, Sep 04, 2022, 2:59 AM UTC

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #80

lacker wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is simply not valued in Europe, and not because there aren't amazing developers there -- there are many. But software isn't considered important In many ways this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. An organization thinks software engineers aren't very important. And it doesn't pay the sort of salaries you need to get the top talent. So it doesn't have any top-tier software engineers, and their software team stru…

> In many ways this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. An organization thinks software engineers aren't very important. And it doesn't pay the sort of salaries you need to get the top talent. So it doesn't have any top-tier software engineers, and their software team struggles to deliver valuable projects. And you can see this in their hiring. All full of interns. I remember when VW was advertising a “software school”. T…

Post by lokar » Sun, Sep 04, 2022, 3:06 AM UTC

gumby wrote: post #35

chrisseaton wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Reality is European workers are under-paid, not US workers over-paid. My point was that European workers are paid in proportion to how they are valued by their employer. If they wrote transformational software their employer wouldn't understand its value and it would either just be shipped without a lot of thought, or ignored. Come to think of it this may be why so much great open source software comes out of Europ…

Post by lokar » Sun, Sep 04, 2022, 3:09 AM UTC

sgjohnson wrote: post #64

geodel wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 qu…

> 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. That's a different problem. That's because you, the user, are not a customer of Atlassian. Companies and their micromanagers, however, love JIRA. Mi…

Post by fomine3 » Sun, Sep 04, 2022, 3:19 AM UTC

gumby wrote: post #72

astrange wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMHO the only countries that really understand software at both a technical and business value add level are US, AUS, Canada, China, with India less so but in that group and Japan just barely getting in. What are Australia and Canada doing in there? Australia has… Atlassian? Besides that, I’ve only heard of developers in Aus/Canada/Japan being well paid if they work for US companies like Google or are parked there…

pedalpete responded about Australia and Canada. Japan considers programming a blue collar task so pays accordingly (though there are exceptions, like Sony Computer Entertainment). But culturally the companies tend to understand the role of software better and have for a while. Remember how great the Keitei were in the late 90s/early 2000s compared to anywhere else in the world?