4 ms·

As someone who lives and works in Germany I'm always surprised when I hear of the strength of the country. I've worked for several very large corporations here,

As someone who lives and works in Germany I'm always surprised when I hear of the strength of the country. I've worked for several very large corporations here, financial and automotive, and how anything is achieved at all remains a complete mystery to me. It seems to me that all the success reported is directly in spite of their attitude towards technology and IT in general instead of because of it. The culture here is to outsource everything besides PM, then every few years when the projects fail or are over budget (time or money) to replace the partner with someone new and lose all the domain knowledge those teams had and then they have to start again. I've seen millions of euros wasted in this manner, the only way it'll be fixed is when the current generation of management retire. I'd be keen to know if anyone else working here has a similar experience, I've tried to 'fix' this culture several times and haven't succeeded yet. Weirdly, in the last 6 months Azure seems to be making huge inroads, perhaps that'll help.

crispyporkbites 7y ago
What you’re seeing are signs of a successful industry. They have money to burn on irrelevant things. At the end of the day the IT system will typically not help your margin on a supply chain beyond a tiny amount.
- cyberpunk 7y ago
  The finance gig I had the IT systems were core business. At one point there I was in a meeting where I was the sole engineer and there were 14 project managers involved in my project. We all had a nice laugh about it but, again, this to me is a sign of a sort of sickness, not a sign of success.
ahartmetz 7y ago
If you only work for very large corporations, you work for some of the most inefficient corporations. You get a higher salary for the resulting frustration. That's the deal. If you want to work in an environment that works according to common sense and achieve something, take a pay cut and join a smaller company. Of course, you still have to do your research and choose wisely.
- d10r 7y ago
  That's why I call those salaries "Schmerzensgeld" :-)
neonate 7y ago
It might be even worse elsewhere.
trhway 7y ago
>then every few years when the projects fail or are over budget (time or money) to replace the partner ... and then they have to start again i've also worked with Germans a lot, and what you said is one of the keys to their success. Everybody makes mistakes. Mistakes are given. Majority of IT everywhere is mistakes, failures and waste :) What Germans do, at least in my anecdotal experience, is that they [slowly, with time, yet unstoppable] do ultimately notice the mistakes/failures and really react to it with strong reaction like you described, like closing projects, replacing partners, etc. - basically cutting the bad pieces out, cutting losses without fear of sunken costs.
Matthias247 7y ago
I can feel you. I had exactly the same feeling when working for a big german cooperation. However let me tell you that the grass is not necessarily greener elsewhere. One thing you mention is domain knowledge. This actually also a big problem in the US tech companies. The people fluctuation is so high that after some years nobody might really know anymore how a certain component works. This is not that much of a problem in german companies. Also the bigger german cooperations have I'm aware of had better planning, project management and QA than things projects I witnessed elsewhere (sample size is obviously limited). While that sounds like more bureaucratic effort, it still reduces the chaotic aspects in projects and improves the chance they will finish on time.

crispyporkbites 7y ago

What you’re seeing are signs of a successful industry. They have money to burn on irrelevant things. At the end of the day the IT system will typically not help your margin on a supply chain beyond a tiny amount.

cyberpunk 7y ago
The finance gig I had the IT systems were core business. At one point there I was in a meeting where I was the sole engineer and there were 14 project managers involved in my project. We all had a nice laugh about it but, again, this to me is a sign of a sort of sickness, not a sign of success.

ahartmetz 7y ago

If you only work for very large corporations, you work for some of the most inefficient corporations. You get a higher salary for the resulting frustration. That's the deal. If you want to work in an environment that works according to common sense and achieve something, take a pay cut and join a smaller company. Of course, you still have to do your research and choose wisely.

d10r 7y ago
That's why I call those salaries "Schmerzensgeld" :-)

neonate 7y ago

It might be even worse elsewhere.

trhway 7y ago

>then every few years when the projects fail or are over budget (time or money) to replace the partner ... and then they have to start again i've also worked with Germans a lot, and what you said is one of the keys to their success. Everybody makes mistakes. Mistakes are given. Majority of IT everywhere is mistakes, failures and waste :) What Germans do, at least in my anecdotal experience, is that they [slowly, with time, yet unstoppable] do ultimately notice the mistakes/failures and really react to it with strong reaction like you described, like closing projects, replacing partners, etc. - basically cutting the bad pieces out, cutting losses without fear of sunken costs.

Matthias247 7y ago

I can feel you. I had exactly the same feeling when working for a big german cooperation. However let me tell you that the grass is not necessarily greener elsewhere. One thing you mention is domain knowledge. This actually also a big problem in the US tech companies. The people fluctuation is so high that after some years nobody might really know anymore how a certain component works. This is not that much of a problem in german companies. Also the bigger german cooperations have I'm aware of had better planning, project management and QA than things projects I witnessed elsewhere (sample size is obviously limited). While that sounds like more bureaucratic effort, it still reduces the chaotic aspects in projects and improves the chance they will finish on time.