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> IBM Canada has won $1.5M contract to develop new platform for IRCC This will buy what? A team of 4 interns and new grads for 6 months. At the end they'll hav

> IBM Canada has won $1.5M contract to develop new platform for IRCC This will buy what? A team of 4 interns and new grads for 6 months. At the end they'll have a slide deck with too much wordart in ith containing some half-baked ideas, and a few lines of code that don't do anything useful at all and are further from production readiness than starting from scratch.

danpalmer 6y ago
I wish I was being facetious, but I really don't think I am. IBM hired extensively from my university, I know people who worked there or adjacent to IBM in industry. They hired the bottom of the cohort (computer science/software engineering) at university and didn't hire anyone who could code. They emphasised communication over technical ability (fine, ok), but their style of communication is business buzzwords in slide decks, not substance. They are keen on business understanding, but that's not product thinking, understanding systems, or the limitations of solutions or anything like that, it's marketing, it's how can we look good. A friend of mine worked for a company who regularly tidied up IBM messes. He was brought on to a project that had been run by a 5 person IBM team for a year. After a year they had detailed requirements for a system that no one wanted. His team of 3 spent 2-3 weeks building a boring CMS on top of Postgres and S3 and the client were ecstatic because it solved the problem they'd had for years. The tech talent at IBM still exists, but it's doing the quantum computing research, or developing their mainframe or server business. The rest is a below average consultancy company.
- znpy 6y ago
  Came here to post pretty much the same. I got a message from IBM CIC (customer innovation center). The HR lady was very rude, was looking for somebody with 6 more years than me and was disappointed by the fact that my yearly salary of the time was waay out of budget. After that experience: - a guy came for an interview, had been working in such place (IBM CIC). that guy had been studying agriculture (with a degree) but pivoted to computer science. he was okay-ish, but had limited experience outside of the power-point level competencies (some-times you have to come up with creative ideas) - a colleague had worked in CIC. they really hire pretty much anyone and throw them at the customer. which basically means that it's a good place to get your foot into the industry, but you should be aiming at leaving as soon as you get any hands-on experience Apaprently unless you work for the real IBM (doing research, ideally, or research-related stuff) you're working in a glorified sweat-shop.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  I totally believe you. Here in nl IBM recently f'd up a storage layer beyond recovery in a series of really dumb moves going from 'minor problem' to 'extensive, unrecoverable dataloss for large number of customers'. After messing it up someone thought that maybe they should call in people who actually know this stuff but by then it was way too late. Highly annoying, that a brand that used to be associated with reliability is now pretty much a guarantee for pretty marketing, expensive suits and some disaster in your future.
- cm2187 6y ago
  In defense of IBM you don't need to be a researcher in quantum computing to build a CRUD app.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  Which University?
  - danpalmer 6y ago
    University of Southampton/ECS, in the UK. It's understandable as IBM have a large campus about 30 minutes away in Hursley near Winchester. I know 2 people who interned there and whos fathers also worked there, 3 who were hired (plus more from my course). They would run tours for undergrad CS students where we'd get on a coach to Hursley, tour around some flashy mainframes behind big windows, have a talk from someone senior, and then hear about their hiring/internship processes.
    - 908B64B197 6y ago
      And there's a number of students who graduate from there without being able to code? Having completed an Computer/Software Engineering degree?
      - danpalmer 6y ago
        The course is what you make of it. It's possible to scrape through the compulsory programming modules in the first 2 years with poor programming skills, and then by careful choice of modules and leaving the coding to others in group work, get by without really being able to code. They will have needed to code during the first few years to some extent, but can mostly get away with not coding in later years if they go for modules that skew towards maths or academic research. When I say "unable to code" here I mean unable to produce working solutions to problems in a professional environment. I'm sure these people can get a few ifs/loops together in Java. Because the course is what you make of it, there are plenty of excellent programmers by the end, and the department has a good relationship with some great grad programmes at companies like ARM, Google, Microfocus, the finance industry, etc. IBM just look for a different kind of student.
debarshri 6y ago
$1.5M goes a long way if the work is outsourced. Generally bigger orgs will have internal contracts. For instance IBM Canada outsources to IBM India at internal discounted rates. When I used to work for TCS, a budget of $80k was good enough for team of 4 for 6 months. I can only imagine that at $1.5M, it is definitely going to get them a few teams.
- danpalmer 6y ago
  This only works if the internal client doesn't take the savings as margin, _and_ the communication and project management is good enough to overcome the issues that come with outsourcing. In this case you've now got 3 levels of project management (Canadian govt, IBM CA, IBM India), 2 countries, 2+ languages, and 2 layers of a company who are banned from government contracts in parts of the world for over spending and under delivering.
  - thegeekbin 6y ago
    IBM Formula For Pricing: Initial Price = Estimated_Cost / 1000 "Oops, we need more money" = (Estimated_Exec_Bonus + Estimated_Corp_Greed) + Worker_Cost + Extra_Corp_Greed
  - debarshri 6y ago
    It might not be organized that way. For instance, it could be that IBM canada basically sold the project and IBM India are the people who would be implementing it. I don't enough about IBM's organization structure to comment on this topic.
- acdha 6y ago
  What’s the quality of that Indian team like, though? You’re adding multiple layers of overhead before anything gets to the actual workers and in my experience once you got under, say, 70% of U.S. rates the quality plummeted because people capable of doing solid technical work are also capable of researching rates and jumping to a better job.
  - 6y ago
thegeekbin 6y ago
Like all IBM projects, it'll go from a small amount to hundreds of millions, and result in still a fancy powerpoint and broken system.
melomal 6y ago
then they'll spin off the division, add it to a SPAC and go public as another $1bn unicorn.
Spooky23 6y ago
It's probably a frontend project to put up a mobile app or something similar, integrating with an existing backend.
tester34 6y ago
Just outsource it to EE and you'll have team made of 10 very good engineers for 22 months in very simplified version where whole cash goes on salaries. 10 * 6750 USD * 22
ivnubinas 6y ago
If they outsource it they can hire lots of mid and senior level engineers using my country's salaries as a reference. Paying 34K a year salary (which is a top 0.1% salary in the Dominican Republic) they can hire up to 35 senior engineers.
- krageon 6y ago
  Of course, outsourcing is in the vast majority of cases a complete disaster.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    And they'll blame the workers rather than the management.
    - thegeekbin 6y ago
      That's how outsourcing works -- who cares if management made promises they could never keep up with, right?
disabled 6y ago
Historically, IBM has held a bad reputation for how it has treated his older workers (ageism and also disability discrimination). Back in the day, they intentionally changed the demographics of their workers, intentionally, through mass termination layoffs. So, a situation like OP described, is very likely to happen. This industry is "gone wild" anyways.
Dirlewanger 6y ago
Yup. I'm in disbelief after seeing that number. Digital government IDs of any kind are something that no government on Earth can securely provide. We're all too immature and stunted with software design still.

danpalmer 6y ago

I wish I was being facetious, but I really don't think I am. IBM hired extensively from my university, I know people who worked there or adjacent to IBM in industry. They hired the bottom of the cohort (computer science/software engineering) at university and didn't hire anyone who could code. They emphasised communication over technical ability (fine, ok), but their style of communication is business buzzwords in slide decks, not substance. They are keen on business understanding, but that's not product thinking, understanding systems, or the limitations of solutions or anything like that, it's marketing, it's how can we look good. A friend of mine worked for a company who regularly tidied up IBM messes. He was brought on to a project that had been run by a 5 person IBM team for a year. After a year they had detailed requirements for a system that no one wanted. His team of 3 spent 2-3 weeks building a boring CMS on top of Postgres and S3 and the client were ecstatic because it solved the problem they'd had for years. The tech talent at IBM still exists, but it's doing the quantum computing research, or developing their mainframe or server business. The rest is a below average consultancy company.

znpy 6y ago
Came here to post pretty much the same. I got a message from IBM CIC (customer innovation center). The HR lady was very rude, was looking for somebody with 6 more years than me and was disappointed by the fact that my yearly salary of the time was waay out of budget. After that experience: - a guy came for an interview, had been working in such place (IBM CIC). that guy had been studying agriculture (with a degree) but pivoted to computer science. he was okay-ish, but had limited experience outside of the power-point level competencies (some-times you have to come up with creative ideas) - a colleague had worked in CIC. they really hire pretty much anyone and throw them at the customer. which basically means that it's a good place to get your foot into the industry, but you should be aiming at leaving as soon as you get any hands-on experience Apaprently unless you work for the real IBM (doing research, ideally, or research-related stuff) you're working in a glorified sweat-shop.
jacquesm 6y ago
I totally believe you. Here in nl IBM recently f'd up a storage layer beyond recovery in a series of really dumb moves going from 'minor problem' to 'extensive, unrecoverable dataloss for large number of customers'. After messing it up someone thought that maybe they should call in people who actually know this stuff but by then it was way too late. Highly annoying, that a brand that used to be associated with reliability is now pretty much a guarantee for pretty marketing, expensive suits and some disaster in your future.
cm2187 6y ago
In defense of IBM you don't need to be a researcher in quantum computing to build a CRUD app.
908B64B197 6y ago
Which University?
- danpalmer 6y ago
  University of Southampton/ECS, in the UK. It's understandable as IBM have a large campus about 30 minutes away in Hursley near Winchester. I know 2 people who interned there and whos fathers also worked there, 3 who were hired (plus more from my course). They would run tours for undergrad CS students where we'd get on a coach to Hursley, tour around some flashy mainframes behind big windows, have a talk from someone senior, and then hear about their hiring/internship processes.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    And there's a number of students who graduate from there without being able to code? Having completed an Computer/Software Engineering degree?
    - danpalmer 6y ago
      The course is what you make of it. It's possible to scrape through the compulsory programming modules in the first 2 years with poor programming skills, and then by careful choice of modules and leaving the coding to others in group work, get by without really being able to code. They will have needed to code during the first few years to some extent, but can mostly get away with not coding in later years if they go for modules that skew towards maths or academic research. When I say "unable to code" here I mean unable to produce working solutions to problems in a professional environment. I'm sure these people can get a few ifs/loops together in Java. Because the course is what you make of it, there are plenty of excellent programmers by the end, and the department has a good relationship with some great grad programmes at companies like ARM, Google, Microfocus, the finance industry, etc. IBM just look for a different kind of student.

debarshri 6y ago

$1.5M goes a long way if the work is outsourced. Generally bigger orgs will have internal contracts. For instance IBM Canada outsources to IBM India at internal discounted rates. When I used to work for TCS, a budget of $80k was good enough for team of 4 for 6 months. I can only imagine that at $1.5M, it is definitely going to get them a few teams.

danpalmer 6y ago
This only works if the internal client doesn't take the savings as margin, _and_ the communication and project management is good enough to overcome the issues that come with outsourcing. In this case you've now got 3 levels of project management (Canadian govt, IBM CA, IBM India), 2 countries, 2+ languages, and 2 layers of a company who are banned from government contracts in parts of the world for over spending and under delivering.
- thegeekbin 6y ago
  IBM Formula For Pricing: Initial Price = Estimated_Cost / 1000 "Oops, we need more money" = (Estimated_Exec_Bonus + Estimated_Corp_Greed) + Worker_Cost + Extra_Corp_Greed
- debarshri 6y ago
  It might not be organized that way. For instance, it could be that IBM canada basically sold the project and IBM India are the people who would be implementing it. I don't enough about IBM's organization structure to comment on this topic.
acdha 6y ago
What’s the quality of that Indian team like, though? You’re adding multiple layers of overhead before anything gets to the actual workers and in my experience once you got under, say, 70% of U.S. rates the quality plummeted because people capable of doing solid technical work are also capable of researching rates and jumping to a better job.
- 6y ago

thegeekbin 6y ago

Like all IBM projects, it'll go from a small amount to hundreds of millions, and result in still a fancy powerpoint and broken system.

melomal 6y ago

then they'll spin off the division, add it to a SPAC and go public as another $1bn unicorn.

Spooky23 6y ago

It's probably a frontend project to put up a mobile app or something similar, integrating with an existing backend.

tester34 6y ago

Just outsource it to EE and you'll have team made of 10 very good engineers for 22 months in very simplified version where whole cash goes on salaries. 10 * 6750 USD * 22

ivnubinas 6y ago

If they outsource it they can hire lots of mid and senior level engineers using my country's salaries as a reference. Paying 34K a year salary (which is a top 0.1% salary in the Dominican Republic) they can hire up to 35 senior engineers.

krageon 6y ago
Of course, outsourcing is in the vast majority of cases a complete disaster.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  And they'll blame the workers rather than the management.
  - thegeekbin 6y ago
    That's how outsourcing works -- who cares if management made promises they could never keep up with, right?

disabled 6y ago

Historically, IBM has held a bad reputation for how it has treated his older workers (ageism and also disability discrimination). Back in the day, they intentionally changed the demographics of their workers, intentionally, through mass termination layoffs. So, a situation like OP described, is very likely to happen. This industry is "gone wild" anyways.

Dirlewanger 6y ago

Yup. I'm in disbelief after seeing that number. Digital government IDs of any kind are something that no government on Earth can securely provide. We're all too immature and stunted with software design still.