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German here. I'll have to dissent on the buddy-business part. That's not how Germany works. It's the opposite, which turns out to be even worse: As a bureaucra

German here. I'll have to dissent on the buddy-business part. That's not how Germany works. It's the opposite, which turns out to be even worse: As a bureaucrat that wants to solve a specific problem, you form a project and are required to make a public submission. Those submissions have to adhere to very formal predefined legal standards (in order to omit corruption) which make them incredibly time-consuming paperwork. For some projects you'll be even legally required to make a EU submission which is even worse. Some German smart-asses "solved" that by creating a skeleton agreement with a handful of BS consulting companies (McKinsey et al.) which therefore win projects in a round robin fashion whilst adhering to some random requirements, e.g. "cheapest wins". So what we get after all is 20 years of all federal states and municipalities being bullish of their own solutions, hundreds of failed digitization attempts for minor features as well as major services, ~3.5B EUR poured into BS consulting shops and nothing that remotely works end-to-end.

jlangenauer 3y ago
To be fair, this is how most "advanced" economies operate. It's identical in Australia (although there the consulting companies run the sweatshops directly so they can skim more cream off the top). Same in the UK.
- moomin 3y ago
  Well, the UK does both. It has both incredible barriers to entry that exclude anyone other than consulting firms whose central skills is dealing with them from participation, and it also has VIP lanes for routing work to your mates.
  - ido 3y ago
    So why are online gov services still so much better in the uk then in Germany?
    - jetbooster 3y ago
      The only cynical solution I can think of is someone is getting obscenely rich by keeping Government Digital running effectively
    - michaelt 3y ago
      In terms of motivation, online services do save the government money on administration costs like manual data entry, costs of returning forms that have been filled out wrong, etc. And every government likes efficiency savings much more than increasing taxes or reducing government services. In terms of implementation, the government employs a small number of competent people directly - the "Government Digital Service" - who accomplish some projects. Other IT projects are done by organisations like Accenture, CSC, Atos Origin, Fujitsu and BT. They are generally paid more if the project is late or buggy, with predictable results. But they'll often produce something eventually, if enough money is thrown at them. The "VIP lanes for routing work to your mates" are more for things like buying overpriced PPE during the pandemic.
    - BucketsMcG 3y ago
      1) Most of uk.gov is actually designed and built in-house. 2) Germany, as a nation, got to about 1991 and collectively decided "This is nice, let's keep it like this". Even the most technologically progressive regions of Germany still think it's 1997. Elsewhere, it's like the wall never came down.
      - tormeh 3y ago
        Honestly, this just reflects the age of the population. Change is more painful when you're old, so stasis becomes more attractive. Usually Germans like the general idea of improvement, but they hate change.
        ethbr1 3y ago
        Ah, so that's why Germany and Japan have such an easy trading relationship.
- Angostura 3y ago
  gov.uk is largely in-house.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  What frightens me is comparing the snail-like rate of progress in the post-modern era with the rapid progress during the 20th century, regardless of economic and governmental system. It's like the a hand brake was simply engaged. I get it that people in power want to stall things so that they can skim money for their own purposes, but doesn't anybody else get just bored by the lack of progress?
  - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
    > but doesn't anybody else get just bored by the lack of progress? Be the change that you want to happen. Where possible implement it in software with your friends and publish it on the internet. Thus: I am not bored by the lack of progress, instead I am rather overworked by implementing parts of this in my free time after work.
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      Of course! My comment was not about software since I'm no programmer, but about progress in the general sense. Why don't the people who are involved and take decisions within large civic projects get bored with the slow rate of progress. Like after they've stolen maybe a few millions for themselves and their friends, why not get on with it and actually start working? Is it necessary to stall progress for years and decades just for the joy of stealing? At least when it comes to IT, the rulers have very few means available for them to stall progress in general, so it becomes very obvious when they're doing it within the places they can control.
      - rocketbop 3y ago
        There’s no real desire within the German civil service to make anything more efficient, partially because it would inevitably result in redundancies, partially because of a general malaise and sense of apathy.
        carlosjobim 3y ago
        Yes, but where does that malaise and apathy come from? I've certainly seen my share of it, dealing with government and large corporations, but not exclusively there.
- josephg 3y ago
  Australia also has the Digital Transformation Agency[1] to do things in house like the UK does it. I’m not sure how many government IT projects use them though. Some departments also seem to have their own (competent) in house software teams, like the ABS, the DSD (Aussie NSA) and the ATO (aus tax office). And thank god for that, because there’s also an ungodly number of consultants milking the Australian taxpayers for all we’re worth. [1] https://www.dta.gov.au/ https://www.dta.gov.au/
croes 3y ago
Especially because the main criteria is the price. So the cheapest wins, and most of the time the price estimation was a lie and you need lots of additional payments or you need to start all over again.
lnxg33k1 3y ago
My buddy at Volkswagen and deutsche bank would like to have a word
dauertewigkeit 3y ago
Both you and the GP are correct. I know of instances of both scenarios.
mawadev 3y ago
That is true and in the end the Chief-Executive-Intern-Junior-Fullstack-Developer from hungary/poland/croatia/romania will do it for the german consulting company bc in-house german developers are too expensive.
- cromka 3y ago
  Can’t speak for others, but Polish engineers aren’t and haven’t been cheaper than German for a while now.
  - pzduniak 3y ago
    Perhaps you're comparing _good_ engineers. That's not who we're talking about here :) There's tens of thousands of fresh IT graduates working 2.5k EUR/mo jobs (or less) - and you can replace any engineer with a finite amount of these guys.
    - morelisp 3y ago
      > There's tens of thousands of fresh IT graduates working 2.5k EUR/mo jobs (or less) Also in Germany.
    - golergka 3y ago
      > There's tens of thousands of fresh IT graduates working 2.5k EUR/mo jobs (or less) That's a senior developer salary in Portugal (in Farfetch, no less).
      - helboi4 3y ago
        I was definitely getting less than that in my first year in the UK. That was because of being scammed by a bootcamp tho haha. In my second year I make moderately more than that
      - 4m1rk 3y ago
        This branch of thread is sad. For everyone.
BurningPenguin 3y ago
Maybe in the North, but in Bavaria it's the "good buddy" scenario.
isaacremuant 3y ago
As someone who has lived in the UK and other European countries, you don't know how refreshing is to hear honest and critical takes on burocracy and/or corruption in European countries. Too often, given the heavier US demographics of sites like HN, we get black or white pictures where it's either the best or the worst and always as some sort of political point related to the US.
PaulHoule 3y ago
This Youtube describes how that scenario plays out in defense contracting in Germany https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jDUVtUA7rg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jDUVtUA7rg "Perun" used to be a video game streamer but thanks to the Russia-Ukraine war he now one of the best warbloggers and even does appearances together with top generals and pros like Anders Puck Nielsen.
ulnarkressty 3y ago
Germany has quite a lush hacker culture (e.g. CCC), I'm wondering why some people with know-how don't just get together and make a bunch of solutions like the one in this submission.
- nforgerit 3y ago
  Because the bureaucrats (mostly suits and legal professionals) being afraid of making compliance mistakes in their projects, they will only hire certified people who went through all the German (mostly) BS university education. So the overall system is optimized for hiring rather subservient people and sorts out potentially talented "troublemakers". In addition, e.g. CCC is one of those groups with well-educated tech talent but they have kind of a history getting criminalized by the German governments (starting from the 80s). As a result, they (to me) seem to be rather anti-government and focus on very valuable tech workshops and tech education for interested civilians.

jlangenauer 3y ago

To be fair, this is how most "advanced" economies operate. It's identical in Australia (although there the consulting companies run the sweatshops directly so they can skim more cream off the top). Same in the UK.

moomin 3y ago
Well, the UK does both. It has both incredible barriers to entry that exclude anyone other than consulting firms whose central skills is dealing with them from participation, and it also has VIP lanes for routing work to your mates.
- ido 3y ago
  So why are online gov services still so much better in the uk then in Germany?
  - jetbooster 3y ago
    The only cynical solution I can think of is someone is getting obscenely rich by keeping Government Digital running effectively
  - michaelt 3y ago
    In terms of motivation, online services do save the government money on administration costs like manual data entry, costs of returning forms that have been filled out wrong, etc. And every government likes efficiency savings much more than increasing taxes or reducing government services. In terms of implementation, the government employs a small number of competent people directly - the "Government Digital Service" - who accomplish some projects. Other IT projects are done by organisations like Accenture, CSC, Atos Origin, Fujitsu and BT. They are generally paid more if the project is late or buggy, with predictable results. But they'll often produce something eventually, if enough money is thrown at them. The "VIP lanes for routing work to your mates" are more for things like buying overpriced PPE during the pandemic.
  - BucketsMcG 3y ago
    1) Most of uk.gov is actually designed and built in-house. 2) Germany, as a nation, got to about 1991 and collectively decided "This is nice, let's keep it like this". Even the most technologically progressive regions of Germany still think it's 1997. Elsewhere, it's like the wall never came down.
    - tormeh 3y ago
      Honestly, this just reflects the age of the population. Change is more painful when you're old, so stasis becomes more attractive. Usually Germans like the general idea of improvement, but they hate change.
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        Ah, so that's why Germany and Japan have such an easy trading relationship.
Angostura 3y ago
gov.uk is largely in-house.
carlosjobim 3y ago
What frightens me is comparing the snail-like rate of progress in the post-modern era with the rapid progress during the 20th century, regardless of economic and governmental system. It's like the a hand brake was simply engaged. I get it that people in power want to stall things so that they can skim money for their own purposes, but doesn't anybody else get just bored by the lack of progress?
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  > but doesn't anybody else get just bored by the lack of progress? Be the change that you want to happen. Where possible implement it in software with your friends and publish it on the internet. Thus: I am not bored by the lack of progress, instead I am rather overworked by implementing parts of this in my free time after work.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    Of course! My comment was not about software since I'm no programmer, but about progress in the general sense. Why don't the people who are involved and take decisions within large civic projects get bored with the slow rate of progress. Like after they've stolen maybe a few millions for themselves and their friends, why not get on with it and actually start working? Is it necessary to stall progress for years and decades just for the joy of stealing? At least when it comes to IT, the rulers have very few means available for them to stall progress in general, so it becomes very obvious when they're doing it within the places they can control.
    - rocketbop 3y ago
      There’s no real desire within the German civil service to make anything more efficient, partially because it would inevitably result in redundancies, partially because of a general malaise and sense of apathy.
      - carlosjobim 3y ago
        Yes, but where does that malaise and apathy come from? I've certainly seen my share of it, dealing with government and large corporations, but not exclusively there.
josephg 3y ago
Australia also has the Digital Transformation Agency[1] to do things in house like the UK does it. I’m not sure how many government IT projects use them though. Some departments also seem to have their own (competent) in house software teams, like the ABS, the DSD (Aussie NSA) and the ATO (aus tax office). And thank god for that, because there’s also an ungodly number of consultants milking the Australian taxpayers for all we’re worth. [1] https://www.dta.gov.au/ https://www.dta.gov.au/

croes 3y ago

Especially because the main criteria is the price. So the cheapest wins, and most of the time the price estimation was a lie and you need lots of additional payments or you need to start all over again.

lnxg33k1 3y ago

My buddy at Volkswagen and deutsche bank would like to have a word

dauertewigkeit 3y ago

Both you and the GP are correct. I know of instances of both scenarios.

mawadev 3y ago

That is true and in the end the Chief-Executive-Intern-Junior-Fullstack-Developer from hungary/poland/croatia/romania will do it for the german consulting company bc in-house german developers are too expensive.

cromka 3y ago
Can’t speak for others, but Polish engineers aren’t and haven’t been cheaper than German for a while now.
- pzduniak 3y ago
  Perhaps you're comparing _good_ engineers. That's not who we're talking about here :) There's tens of thousands of fresh IT graduates working 2.5k EUR/mo jobs (or less) - and you can replace any engineer with a finite amount of these guys.
  - morelisp 3y ago
    > There's tens of thousands of fresh IT graduates working 2.5k EUR/mo jobs (or less) Also in Germany.
  - golergka 3y ago
    > There's tens of thousands of fresh IT graduates working 2.5k EUR/mo jobs (or less) That's a senior developer salary in Portugal (in Farfetch, no less).
    - helboi4 3y ago
      I was definitely getting less than that in my first year in the UK. That was because of being scammed by a bootcamp tho haha. In my second year I make moderately more than that
    - 4m1rk 3y ago
      This branch of thread is sad. For everyone.

BurningPenguin 3y ago

Maybe in the North, but in Bavaria it's the "good buddy" scenario.

isaacremuant 3y ago

As someone who has lived in the UK and other European countries, you don't know how refreshing is to hear honest and critical takes on burocracy and/or corruption in European countries. Too often, given the heavier US demographics of sites like HN, we get black or white pictures where it's either the best or the worst and always as some sort of political point related to the US.

PaulHoule 3y ago

This Youtube describes how that scenario plays out in defense contracting in Germany https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jDUVtUA7rg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jDUVtUA7rg "Perun" used to be a video game streamer but thanks to the Russia-Ukraine war he now one of the best warbloggers and even does appearances together with top generals and pros like Anders Puck Nielsen.

ulnarkressty 3y ago

Germany has quite a lush hacker culture (e.g. CCC), I'm wondering why some people with know-how don't just get together and make a bunch of solutions like the one in this submission.

nforgerit 3y ago
Because the bureaucrats (mostly suits and legal professionals) being afraid of making compliance mistakes in their projects, they will only hire certified people who went through all the German (mostly) BS university education. So the overall system is optimized for hiring rather subservient people and sorts out potentially talented "troublemakers". In addition, e.g. CCC is one of those groups with well-educated tech talent but they have kind of a history getting criminalized by the German governments (starting from the 80s). As a result, they (to me) seem to be rather anti-government and focus on very valuable tech workshops and tech education for interested civilians.