Winnti: Hackers attacking the heart of German industry • Hacker News Board

Re: Winnti: Hackers attacking the heart of German industry

#71

Post by pjmlp » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

_puk wrote: post #56

pjmlp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Portuguese doing consultancy in Germany, the market is way better than in other European countries. As for the software quality, it is everywhere the same when the main business is not selling software packages. Companies just care that their use cases are covered, no matter how it looks under the hood.

How is Portugal on the cost of living vs wage scale? I was under the impression that the likes of Lisbon are great if you earn above average wage, and the surf is awesome. Tech in Lisbon not comparable to Germany?

Fellow countrymen might jump in to set me straight, as I have been away for too long, so I lack proper information.

Lisbon is a great city, but expect to live in the suburbs due to the high cost of renting and enjoy about one hour commute time and salaries are still below what we used to enjoy during the first .com wave (1995 - 2002).

Yes, tech is comparable, but not everyone can live in Lisbon.

There are smaller tech hubs across Porto, Aveiro, Braga and Coimbra due to their universities, but pay is even less than in Lisbon, although you get to enjoy better quality life and might afford to live on the city center.

But expect to do lots of overtime without any kind of reward beyond a "thank you", while in Germany those kind of situations are regulated, and in when it happens you have the support to complain about them. If you want to actually take that route that is another matter.

Naturally there are a few unicorns that are great places to work and do reward the extra mile, but they are the exception, not the rule.

Re: Winnti: Hackers attacking the heart of German industry

#72

Post by odiroot » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 2:37 PM UTC

kayoone wrote: post #41

DangerousPie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on what I have heard from friends in London and Germany salaries are actually a lot better in Germany. Especially once you account for cost of living.

This. Salaries of 70-90k EUR for Senior devs in Berlin are absolutely achievable and combined with the quite low cost of living in Berlin you probably have more fun money than anywhere in Europe as a developer.

Anything above high 60's is really a pipe dream in this current market.

Re: Winnti: Hackers attacking the heart of German industry

#73

Post by TulliusCicero » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 2:37 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #51

tpush wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But not nearly as much as you'd have in the US, probably.

Rents are a lot cheaper in Berlin. You don't need a car either. It's also a nicer city in general, I feel a lot safer in Berlin than in San Francisco.

German cities themselves are definitely much nicer than American cities. In fact, "much nicer" is an understatement, American cities usually feel like they were designed by people who hate cities and want everyone in them to suffer.

That said, US lifestyle/culture has its own set of advantages compared to Germany. German culture is surprisingly backwards for consumer software/internet stuff, for example.

Re: Winnti: Hackers attacking the heart of German industry

#74

Post by PinguTS » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 2:38 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #46

lnsru wrote: post #10

As of today we still use shared network drives for everything in major German company. We don’t use slack/irc/Skype/zoom/whatever. Phone calls and conferences(!) from the middle of open office is normal. Asana/Trello/Jira are not known at all. GitHub is paid for, but never used. I am single weirdo in multi department project using github ticket system. The code with prefix is copied for colleagues to project’s shared…

The state of the German IT industry outside of a few select places (Berlin, mostly) is what makes me very pessimistic about the future of its car industry. They (meaning the big 3: VW, BMW and Mercedes) apparently still think that building the best engines/transmissions and being the best at putting them all together is all it takes in order to make a modern car, unfortunately I think EVs will be more about software…

Funfact: more than 30% value in a car is software, which is highly interconnected via various type of networks namely, LIN, CAN, MOST, FlexRay, Ethernet. Most current premium cars have more than 10 of those networks and around 100 to 130 ECUs that talk to each other.

So much about: they don't know about software.

BTW: The difference between IT and automotive aka embedded is that embedded should work even without DevOps. Well, IT we know.

Re: Winnti: Hackers attacking the heart of German industry

#75

Post by HeWhoLurksLate » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

mbeex wrote: post #22

mschuster91 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> treating IT like a cost center that has to be outsourced to wherever is cheaper As if outsourcing wasn't a common trend across Western companies "thanks" to globalization and the utter dominance of US-american neoliberalism. > and companies' tradition of rewarding management incompetence over technical competence Again, quite common - the "old" Soziale Marktwirtschaft moguls with decades-long visions would not let…

> People avoid SV/USA due to the current President _some_ people do. Others allow themselves different opinions to this president and even to their prospects in SV > and London due to the Brexit uncertainity True > before Johnson drives everything into the ground ... but also here there are different opinions concerning the nature of this uncertainty

Aaaand some people care more about their life than they do their country's politics, thankfully.

IMO, politics and stuff is necessary, but I really wish we could argue /debate respectfully without the damn flame wars everywhere of late. It seriously puts me off.

Re: Winnti: Hackers attacking the heart of German industry

#76

Post by hobofan » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

odiroot wrote: post #72

kayoone wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Salaries of 70-90k EUR for Senior devs in Berlin are absolutely achievable and combined with the quite low cost of living in Berlin you probably have more fun money than anywhere in Europe as a developer.

Anything above high 60's is really a pipe dream in this current market.

If you are looking at SMBs that treat you as a "IT guy", sure.

If you are looking at more "modern" tech companies in Berlin or well-funded startups it's definitely possible. The last 3 job offers I had were in the 90-100k range, for a "senior" position (~6 years of experience) in Berlin.

Re: Winnti: Hackers attacking the heart of German industry

#77

Post by tsss » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #47

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because when it comes to anything cyber-related, the German government, like most big companies there, is a dinosaur, greatly inferior to it's British and Swiss counterparts.

Germany at least has the CCC, which it sometimes asks for advice and, occasionally, listens to.

When they aren't trying to put them in jail that is.

Re: Winnti: Hackers attacking the heart of German industry

#78

Post by wiz21c » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

nosianu wrote: post #64

est31 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a German soon to be CS graduate and right now my favourites are SV and London. I'll try to get into a company that can sponsor L1 visa for SV first and then I'll try London. The German job market is precisely as described by GP: you are competing all the time with remote people in countries with much smaller cost of living and the wages are super low compared to aforementioned places. Germany has great schools, a…

> I'm a German soon to be CS graduate As someone who was in that position ca. 20 years ago and then moved to SV for almost a decade: I don't think I would have dare to make such a sweeping claim as you: > The German job market is precisely as described by GP As a completely new entry into the job market, despite plenty of real work experience (during the last two years of my study the study was "secondary", I managed…

secondign this. I'm 45 yo, and by the time I entered the job market, I was a real good developer (sold my first commercial program at 16, made 3D engines at 18, etc.). And you know what ? I didn't knew anything. That's because software is a just a part of the equation : knowing the business, the people, the rules, the companies, your own needs in life, working with others, with management, etc. All of that you don't learn at school and you learn as you go. So if you can land a job in SV, just do it, but don't think that's the end of it :-)

Now, for my part, I came to the conclusion software is just a tool and, as that tool, I want to be used for things that matter to me. Since I think that the only thing that matters now are fighting poverty, climate change, I really wonder what I'm gonna do...

And I can assure you, when I was at your age, all my life was oriented to make one and only one thing : 3D engines for video games, which I did.

So you see, life is full of surprise :-)

Re: Winnti: Hackers attacking the heart of German industry

#79

Post by hobofan » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #5

iagovar wrote: post #2

This group of german companies founded their own security group [German Cyber Security Organization (DCSO)]. That speaks a lot about their trust in their public services. The only time I've been involved in a hacking attempt (it was ransomware) the company I work for contacted the CCN-CERT. I wonder if US companies contact NSA/Other gov agencies or deal with it themselves with security companies. Also, while I unders…

Probably because when it comes to anything cyber-related, the German government, like most big companies there, is a dinosaur, greatly inferior to it's British and Swiss counterparts.

I'm not sure what the social aspects in Britain and Switzerland are like, but in Germany, working for the BND or other governmental cyber security institutions is frowned upon in the cyber-security circles (at least that's my view from someone not too deep in the field).

Re: Winnti: Hackers attacking the heart of German industry

#80

Post by paganel » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 3:11 PM UTC

PinguTS wrote: post #74

paganel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state of the German IT industry outside of a few select places (Berlin, mostly) is what makes me very pessimistic about the future of its car industry. They (meaning the big 3: VW, BMW and Mercedes) apparently still think that building the best engines/transmissions and being the best at putting them all together is all it takes in order to make a modern car, unfortunately I think EVs will be more about software…

Funfact: more than 30% value in a car is software, which is highly interconnected via various type of networks namely, LIN, CAN, MOST, FlexRay, Ethernet. Most current premium cars have more than 10 of those networks and around 100 to 130 ECUs that talk to each other. So much about: they don't know about software. BTW: The difference between IT and automotive aka embedded is that embedded should work even without DevO…

I own a basically German-engineered car (the car badge itself is Spanish), and one of its main advantages is that it is old enough (well, by today's standards, the car is from 2007) that is not sophisticated enough in order to include that much electronics and software. As such I'm perfectly confident to hop right in and drive 400-500 miles, heck, I've driven almost 3000 miles a couple of summers ago all the way to Switzerland and back.

I would totally not have the same level of confidence driving a more modern German car with more electronics and software included. As such, how much of today's value of a car is comprised of its software is orthogonal to how good or bad that software actually is.