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Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

handelsblatt.com

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Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#61

Post by ivan_gammel »

iamctobitch wrote: post #50
ivan_gammel wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason middle managers hire ineffective developers in Germany and elsewhere is that the job market is in a state of permanent crisis: the demand is so high that now everyone calls "senior" the people who cannot even estimate the performance of an algorithm or didn't bother to learn something new in the last 5 years. This applies both to developers and to managers and is complicated by the fact, that large an…

No sorry this is wrong. You can import East European labor very easily in Germany, so there is no shortage of developers in German market and there never will be in foreseable future. Labor comes from outside, this is precisely why the things are kept at the top so that external people don't get the required information to rival the mothership.

The shortage of developers in Germany is exactly the reason why people from Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa are hired in the first place. There's plenty of reports and publications discussing this shortage from last 10-15 years - it's not new and it has never been solved.

Just an example: https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/companies/wirtschaftswund...

I don't know what kind of CTO you are (I'm CTO too), but if you were hiring recently in Germany, you should be able to notice the average time to fill a senior software engineer position is several months. This is the reality in which we live.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#62

Post by edem »

iagovar wrote: post #57
edem wrote: post #49

About time. I had the "luck" of working for multiple German companies (including Volkswagen) and I'm surprised how these behemoths still function. As a grunt programmer, it was painful to see how the upper management made decisions based on politics which made no technological sense whatsoever. In my years of working for German companies I saw multiple project reboots, millions of $s thrown out of the window on faile…

They won't learn. I work for another euro behemoth and it's exactly the situation you describe. As long as they pay me and support my lifestyle I have no problem, but Im already tired of trying to fight the nonsense. Sadly Im not a programmer so finding other companies with the same conditions is hard.

I'd really like to be able to just sit and do the work and don't care about these things (I'm not talking about you but the ability in general).

I just can't help myself. I'm always trying to fix things but with a company like this it feels like as if I was trying to climb the Mount Everest.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#64

Post by Brakenshire »

iamctobitch wrote: post #59
edem wrote: post #49

About time. I had the "luck" of working for multiple German companies (including Volkswagen) and I'm surprised how these behemoths still function. As a grunt programmer, it was painful to see how the upper management made decisions based on politics which made no technological sense whatsoever. In my years of working for German companies I saw multiple project reboots, millions of $s thrown out of the window on faile…

>I'm surprised how these behemoths still function. You haven't seen Brazilian or India companies in comparison with same level of buercracy and lacking in resources and technology. German companies are still working because rest of the world is soo bad in comparison. But this is changing as China/US will compete directly head to head in EV segment and both of them already have massive software ecosystem which did not…

Do those companies really have a problem with software? I’d imagine most of the software in cars is embedded, for controlling different mechanisms for the brakes, steering, cooling, etc. For those, I would prefer a stuffy bureacratic process rather than a Tesla, SV style move-fast attitude, even if that is more productive. I want software in a car to be finished and tested fully when the car is delivered, and then to disappear, I would consider it a failure if the company has to fix or alter safety critical parts of the software after it has been delivered, and I’d prefer that process to happen through some highly controlled process linked to servicing or recall, and not through random frequent OTA updates which are being thrown out. I really can't see how monthly updates can be properly checked for safety.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#65

Post by clouddrover »

lazyjones wrote: post #48
clouddrover wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the world car market is bigger than just China, because Volkswagen is the world's second biggest car company, and because VW is big enough to spend its way out of trouble (which is what it's doing now).

If the world worked that way, Microsoft would dominate the mobile OS market now. They had plenty of money and were the 2nd largest (by sales, 1st by market cap) software company when they gave up trying. The Chinese car market is the largest in the world and due to EV popularity, by far the largest and most important EV market. If VW doesn't prevail there, they aren't likely to come anywhere near the position of "big…

Your analogy is flawed. Battery EVs are just another type of car. All the major car manufacturers make many types of cars (petrol, diesel, hybrid, hydrogen fuel cell, and full electric).

In 2018, 4 of the top 10 selling cars in China were Volkswagens:

https://focus2move.com/best-selling-cars-models-in-china/

In the future they'll just so happen to be battery electric Volkswagens.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#66

Post by tonyedgecombe »

iamctobitch wrote: post #53
l4u532 wrote: post #8

As a German, I am quite happy about this. What you must know is that German organisations are extremely hierarchical, with little information flowing from frontline management to to top management. Hence, change only happens top down and only if the top managers in their ivory towers deem it necessary. But it’s incredibly important that our automakers reinvent themselves. And here we have the necessary angst to drive…

This is what happens when industry is supported by government and whole ecosystem is created around it, this does give competitive advantages but induces complacemenement. Their final resort is politics (protectionism) to preserve their competitive advantage. In Germany, there is no way for an engineer to become very wealthy through entrepreneurship. Even if you bought a house, you can't make much money from it throu…

>In Germany, there is no way for an engineer to become very wealthy through entrepreneurship.

Yet Germany is often held up as the example of valuing engineers and scientists. Isn't the current chancellor a Scientist.

>Even if you bought a house, you can't make much money from it through renting or appreciation.

That is a good thing.

>Because whole country is optimize for cheap labor.

Which is why the country is in such a strong position within Europe now, IIRC they are the only country in the EU with a positive balance of trade with China.

>You worked hard at university and became engineer? Well someone fucked up and become highschool teacher yet makes same wage as you. Suck it up and that's what kill motivation of engineers.

You might well look down on teachers but education is far more important than most of the crappy startups people here are working on.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#67

Post by raverbashing »

iamctobitch wrote: post #53
l4u532 wrote: post #8

As a German, I am quite happy about this. What you must know is that German organisations are extremely hierarchical, with little information flowing from frontline management to to top management. Hence, change only happens top down and only if the top managers in their ivory towers deem it necessary. But it’s incredibly important that our automakers reinvent themselves. And here we have the necessary angst to drive…

This is what happens when industry is supported by government and whole ecosystem is created around it, this does give competitive advantages but induces complacemenement. Their final resort is politics (protectionism) to preserve their competitive advantage. In Germany, there is no way for an engineer to become very wealthy through entrepreneurship. Even if you bought a house, you can't make much money from it throu…

Throwaway account with malicious disinformation, what's not to like

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#68

Post by _visgean »

ahartmetz wrote: post #10
l4u532 wrote: post #8

As a German, I am quite happy about this. What you must know is that German organisations are extremely hierarchical, with little information flowing from frontline management to to top management. Hence, change only happens top down and only if the top managers in their ivory towers deem it necessary. But it’s incredibly important that our automakers reinvent themselves. And here we have the necessary angst to drive…

Not all German organizations are like that. The car industry is especially dysfunctional. I've been watching them fail at software for years now. The problem, as far as I can tell, is as follows: top management is able and motivated to increase the size of the money bag. Developers just want to do a good job for a good salary. Middle management can't change the size of the money bag too much, so it just wants to grab…

> subpar academic CS

There is a lot of really good CS/math research coming from German uni's, I would not call it subpar.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#69

Post by _visgean »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #61
iamctobitch wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No sorry this is wrong. You can import East European labor very easily in Germany, so there is no shortage of developers in German market and there never will be in foreseable future. Labor comes from outside, this is precisely why the things are kept at the top so that external people don't get the required information to rival the mothership.

The shortage of developers in Germany is exactly the reason why people from Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa are hired in the first place. There's plenty of reports and publications discussing this shortage from last 10-15 years - it's not new and it has never been solved. Just an example: https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/companies/wirtschaftswund... I don't know what kind of CTO you are (I'm CTO too), but if…

is that not the case everywhere?

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#70

Post by ivan_gammel »

Brakenshire wrote: post #64
iamctobitch wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm surprised how these behemoths still function. You haven't seen Brazilian or India companies in comparison with same level of buercracy and lacking in resources and technology. German companies are still working because rest of the world is soo bad in comparison. But this is changing as China/US will compete directly head to head in EV segment and both of them already have massive software ecosystem which did not…

Do those companies really have a problem with software? I’d imagine most of the software in cars is embedded, for controlling different mechanisms for the brakes, steering, cooling, etc. For those, I would prefer a stuffy bureacratic process rather than a Tesla, SV style move-fast attitude, even if that is more productive. I want software in a car to be finished and tested fully when the car is delivered, and then to…

I don't know exactly how it works at VW or BMW, but large enterprises may have a big in-house software engineering unit which is focused on internal software systems (manufacturing management, supply chains etc) and the effort put in it can be even bigger than in the embedded software. This kind of enterprise software may boost or slow down the transformation of the company, depending on how the development and deployment is executed.
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