4 ms·

I’m US based but used to work with a lot of people in EU/UK and Eastern Europe. Almost all of the IT/Software Engineer staff from German and UK customers I work

by wil421 4y ago

I’m US based but used to work with a lot of people in EU/UK and Eastern Europe. Almost all of the IT/Software Engineer staff from German and UK customers I worked with were contractors. I was a little shocked about how much was outsourced to avoid a full time employee. Almost all were talented but only a very small German IP phone company and a very high tech German lens maker had staff software engineers.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>I was a little shocked about how much was outsourced to avoid a full time employee. Because in Germany, firing full time employees is nearly impossible, so companies use contractors from body-shops or off-shore work to Eastern Europe to avoid the risks of being sattled with useless employees they can't get rid of later. I've seen this happen first hand. Many older German SW engineers from traditional companies refused to keep up with modern tech and tools, preferring to coast and do nothing till retirement, rather than learn and adapt, bogging the company down heavily. One old German dude I used to work with would intentionally break git repos in protest, because he didn't like "this new complicated git thing" and didn't understand why "we can't just keep using Clearcase?", despite receiving numerous trainings paid by the company on how to use git. He was still kept around because he couldn't be fired but wasn't contributing to anything productive. Same with transitioning employees like him to "new" programming languages like Java or C#. Stuff like this is why EU devs earn less than US devs and why traditional German companies are no SW leaders and will die a slow death.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  > he didn't like "this new complicated git thing" and didn't understand why "we can't just keep using Clearcase?" Maybe his point was valid?
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    As a personal preference sure. But then he's free to look for a company where he can keep using Clearcase instead of sabotaging the change and holding back development for everyone, just to avoid having to learn git even though the company is paying him to learn it. Clearcase does cost licensing money for the company though and also time in onboarding new grads who are already familiar with git. Git is also supported out of the box by all the CI/CD and modern dev tooling. Getting tools to work with Clearcase is a wasteful effort. So I can't see how his point would be valid in any business sense other than stubbornness.
- deleted 4y ago
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by wil421 4y ago

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

>I was a little shocked about how much was outsourced to avoid a full time employee. Because in Germany, firing full time employees is nearly impossible, so companies use contractors from body-shops or off-shore work to Eastern Europe to avoid the risks of being sattled with useless employees they can't get rid of later. I've seen this happen first hand. Many older German SW engineers from traditional companies refused to keep up with modern tech and tools, preferring to coast and do nothing till retirement, rather than learn and adapt, bogging the company down heavily. One old German dude I used to work with would intentionally break git repos in protest, because he didn't like "this new complicated git thing" and didn't understand why "we can't just keep using Clearcase?", despite receiving numerous trainings paid by the company on how to use git. He was still kept around because he couldn't be fired but wasn't contributing to anything productive. Same with transitioning employees like him to "new" programming languages like Java or C#. Stuff like this is why EU devs earn less than US devs and why traditional German companies are no SW leaders and will die a slow death.

SoftTalker 4y ago
> he didn't like "this new complicated git thing" and didn't understand why "we can't just keep using Clearcase?" Maybe his point was valid?
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  As a personal preference sure. But then he's free to look for a company where he can keep using Clearcase instead of sabotaging the change and holding back development for everyone, just to avoid having to learn git even though the company is paying him to learn it. Clearcase does cost licensing money for the company though and also time in onboarding new grads who are already familiar with git. Git is also supported out of the box by all the CI/CD and modern dev tooling. Getting tools to work with Clearcase is a wasteful effort. So I can't see how his point would be valid in any business sense other than stubbornness.
deleted 4y ago
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