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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

#91

Post by iamctobitch2 »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #81
ivan_gammel wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Completely wrong: there is no shortage of developers, there is a shortage of competent people. Huge difference. Not a CxO myself, but high enough to feel the pain of hiring good people, especially when HR does not allow to pay them properly - for them all developers are the same, so they all get about the same salary.

You make it seem like the competent people can't be from other parts of EU, why?

There are many competent engineers in whole EU to hire from? I work with some incredibly talented Polish and Romanian engineers, I never felt there is shortage of labor in German market. Perhaps some companies need to offer more incentive, network better and open up more to employees.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#92

Post by kayoone »

lnsru wrote: post #87
iagovar wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exact my situation. Working for a company with roots in Siemens. The culture is terrible, must fight the nonsense to get some meaningful task. Getting insane money for doing nothing, loosing skills every month, mental health suffers, but family depends on my income. Finding other companies in Germany with similar conditions is hard, looking now in Switzerland.

What are you doing exactly? Come to Berlin :)

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#93

Post by jessaustin »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #75
xcvvv wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there are probably horrible bureaucratic structures in Germany's car industry, I think this comment isn't quite fair. Mercedes and BMW are still very nice to drive in. The issue is more that German's generally don't believe in fads, and self-driving cars are one of them. I just don't want a self driving car, which takes away the last bit of fun of sitting in a metal box: Being in charge of where the damn box go…

>Germans just have a higher bar for "innovation": It has to be useful. Somehow they don't find credit cards useful and still pay a lot in cash, when the rest of the world already embraced wireless payments. :)

Of course they're correct in that particular preference.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#94

Post by pps43 »

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…

> German companies are still working because rest of the world is soo bad in comparison.

Not any more. In the most recent Consumer Reports car reliability rankings German car manufacturers are nowhere near the top. The top three are Lexus, Toyota, and Kia (sic!)

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#95

Post by [deleted] »

kayoone wrote: post #92
lnsru wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exact my situation. Working for a company with roots in Siemens. The culture is terrible, must fight the nonsense to get some meaningful task. Getting insane money for doing nothing, loosing skills every month, mental health suffers, but family depends on my income. Finding other companies in Germany with similar conditions is hard, looking now in Switzerland.

What are you doing exactly? Come to Berlin :)

[deleted]

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#96

Post by kayoone »

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.

Our company is trying to hire 50 more developers until end of the year and its hard, we get them from all over the world, especially India and Africa has a lot of good talent nowadays but also east europeans. But it's still hard to find good people.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#97

Post by Udik »

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…

> How does a middle manager expand their empire? Certainly not by leading a small, effective organization. The head count needs to grow, so the middle manager wants ineffective developers.

I've seen this in every company I've worked in. Importance of projects is measured in how many people work on them; you'd think that creating efficiencies and managing the work in an extra small team would be valued, instead you fall into complete irrelevance.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#98

Post by ff10 »

bookofjoe wrote: post #78

I was surprised to find OP didn't cite what I believe to be an even more existential threat: the rise of Tesla's bit-based cabin vs. the atom-based tradition of legacy makers. Compare the Model S with its elegant, minimalist, understandable layout vs. the latest Mercedes-Benz S-Class cabin, which resembles a miniaturized version of the space shuttle: countless dials, screens, buttons, switches, levers, and lights abo…

You imply that traditional dashboards are too complicated. However, Tesla is merely hiding that complexity behind one or a few screens an a few buttons. I like the approach to minimalism, but in my opinion there has to be a balance between pragmatism and beauty. The learning curve and ease of access is just lower in German (or traditional) dashboards in general. I am not sure if Tesla found that particular balance. I hear a lot of hate towards the giant screen and no love, but that is just anecdotal. I assume Tesla went so radical in the Model 3 to save costs, rather than to stay minimalistic.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#99

Post by dustindiamond »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #70
Brakenshire wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 deplo…

I worked for a small SaaS that accidentally DOS’d MB’s entire ERP system, while requesting vehicle specs based on vin via their provided API.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#100

Post by iamctobitch2 »

mpweiher wrote: post #46
_the_inflator wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely second that as a German as well. Disruption is desperately needed and I am glad that a 16 year old company kicks the German complacency out of business. Reinvention? What sort of? They don't get software, they don't get new business models. That's why they stick to politics who should save their models - which is protectionism. Germany's car makers were never customer first. What kind of innovation did Ger…

> What kind of innovation did Germany establish besides ABS? How about: the car (Carl Benz)? And the motorcycle (Daimler)? All the common (and uncommon) engine types: Otto, Diesel, Wankel. More recently, always-on four wheel drive (Quattro). I am sure I am leaving out a ton of innovation in engine and drivetrain technologies. > Germany's car makers are great at marketing That's a fairly new development. German car co…

> they will be able to show to you very convincingly that electric cars are a joke, don't perform adequately and aren't even environmentally superior

The achievements you list are long gone, they are just too old. Rest of the world has moved on since then and that's not enough gunpowder to keep the water steaming anymore.

And German automobile industry does feel that EV are environment friednly otherwise they wouldn't be forced into Emissions Scandal if it was anything otherwise. So, they are already feeling the heat!

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