5 ms·

This sounds like an underestimation to me. An ECU in car can consume up a team of 200 to 250 engineering resource. This only for those working directly on the E

This sounds like an underestimation to me. An ECU in car can consume up a team of 200 to 250 engineering resource. This only for those working directly on the ECUs. Add to it the secondary functions, the numbers will explode.

virtualritz 7y ago
I worked on the infotainment part of recently released top brand car's software. The number of engineers on that was flabbergasting. Way higher than your number. But the reason was not that it was needed. The reasons were: - The approach to developing software (pure waterfall, with lots of agile BS bingo terms as seasoning). As someone else mentioned: Old car companies do not understand software. I may add: At all. - Upper management throwing more resources at missed deadlines (that were moving all the time anyway). Every seasoned developer knows that more developers will slow you down. Nine women can't have a baby in one month. - Trying to understand the issues with the project getting pear shaped by looking at burn down charts. Once I was on a way to one of these meetings in an elevator and someone said: "Gentlemen, are you also on going to our weekly 'Men who stare at graphs' ritual?" Most senior engineering folks agreed that the work hundreds of developers, dozens of engineering managers, PMs, POs, agile coaches and god-knows-what-other-fancy-title people were doing could be done by a team of around 25. I completely agree and as such parent is right. 5k-10k people is complete overkill. But then -- given how these companies work -- it is not. It is indeed an underestimation and the very reason this will go nowhere. A few cars will be released with this OS and then it will be replaced by something much better that someone else, not an old car company, was doing in the meantime.
- gtirloni 7y ago
  I wish they would stick to traditional waterfall development, even NASA-style if they could afford it, for something as critical as a vehicle OS.
- yitchelle 7y ago
  I have also worked in the infotainment space, now in powertrain space. It seems that the infotainment teams seems to be 2x to 3x the size of a typical automotive engineering team. Sometimes, I feel that infotainment products are more subjective than the other car functions. eg, Does that "ding" sound notification reflect the values of our brand vs Can the maximum power be transferred to the rear wheels in the snow within 300ms, subject questions vs objective questions. Subjective questions needs more study and analysis, leading to more engineers.
jonahrd 7y ago
I worked on firmware at Tesla. My estimate is absolute maximum 10 HW engineers, 10 SW, 10 test, a handful of managers, requirements engineers, etc. That would be for an important ECU. I developed the FW for a couple ECUs singlehandedly along with 1 HW engineer and an intern. Maybe that's the difference between Tesla and the others.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  Even when you look at bigger teams there are still only a handful of people doing actual work. Out of that team of 10,000 I bet 90% of the commits will come from 100.

virtualritz 7y ago

I worked on the infotainment part of recently released top brand car's software. The number of engineers on that was flabbergasting. Way higher than your number. But the reason was not that it was needed. The reasons were: - The approach to developing software (pure waterfall, with lots of agile BS bingo terms as seasoning). As someone else mentioned: Old car companies do not understand software. I may add: At all. - Upper management throwing more resources at missed deadlines (that were moving all the time anyway). Every seasoned developer knows that more developers will slow you down. Nine women can't have a baby in one month. - Trying to understand the issues with the project getting pear shaped by looking at burn down charts. Once I was on a way to one of these meetings in an elevator and someone said: "Gentlemen, are you also on going to our weekly 'Men who stare at graphs' ritual?" Most senior engineering folks agreed that the work hundreds of developers, dozens of engineering managers, PMs, POs, agile coaches and god-knows-what-other-fancy-title people were doing could be done by a team of around 25. I completely agree and as such parent is right. 5k-10k people is complete overkill. But then -- given how these companies work -- it is not. It is indeed an underestimation and the very reason this will go nowhere. A few cars will be released with this OS and then it will be replaced by something much better that someone else, not an old car company, was doing in the meantime.

gtirloni 7y ago
I wish they would stick to traditional waterfall development, even NASA-style if they could afford it, for something as critical as a vehicle OS.
yitchelle 7y ago
I have also worked in the infotainment space, now in powertrain space. It seems that the infotainment teams seems to be 2x to 3x the size of a typical automotive engineering team. Sometimes, I feel that infotainment products are more subjective than the other car functions. eg, Does that "ding" sound notification reflect the values of our brand vs Can the maximum power be transferred to the rear wheels in the snow within 300ms, subject questions vs objective questions. Subjective questions needs more study and analysis, leading to more engineers.

jonahrd 7y ago

I worked on firmware at Tesla. My estimate is absolute maximum 10 HW engineers, 10 SW, 10 test, a handful of managers, requirements engineers, etc. That would be for an important ECU. I developed the FW for a couple ECUs singlehandedly along with 1 HW engineer and an intern. Maybe that's the difference between Tesla and the others.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
Even when you look at bigger teams there are still only a handful of people doing actual work. Out of that team of 10,000 I bet 90% of the commits will come from 100.