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It's weird to me how it often seems like the US and China are the only countries capable of mega-scale tech infrastructure like this (and even then, only in som
by wyager 1y ago
It's weird to me how it often seems like the US and China are the only countries capable of mega-scale tech infrastructure like this (and even then, only in some industries). Can you imagine Wal-mart's website going down for multiple months?
I think a lot of companies (especially in Europe) have not internalized that, yes, you actually do need to expend apparently exorbitant amounts of money on highly-paid engineers if you want your tech to actually be good. Many countries, including the UK, are simply not wealthy enough to do it at scale. They produce plenty of engineers, but most of the ones capable of holding complicated stuff together probably end up working for US companies that can pay them market rates.
- tristor 1y agoWith the case of M&S, and in many other cases in UK tech history that have gone poorly, it's mostly examples of the failure of hiring outside consultancies in India to do everything. Business executives continuously fall afoul of the fungibility myth. They believe that engineers are fungible, and that they should therefore simply pay for the cheapest engineers possible that meet the "requirements" on paper, usually set by someone who is not an engineer (HR, project manager, or a lower ranked middle-manager). Time and time and time again we have seen major failures globally, and especially in the UK, that prove that there is no fungibility of engineers, and that outsourcing the critical technical infrastructure for your core systems and services is doomed to failure. They'd rather save a dollar today and lose ten million dollars tomorrow by damaging their national economy and sending more money to India. India's GDP is basically entirely propped up by tech services, and most of that is /failed service delivery/, hard to differentiate from frauds and scams at scale.
- theuppermiddle 1y agoJust because consultants are from India does not make them incompetent. Not to mention the attack vector was social engineering, which can happen to any person of any nationality. 70% of India's GDP is domestic consumption. 7% of the GDP is service export, of which only 3.5% is software services. While significant, it certainly is not "propping" up India's GDP.
- zwog 1y agoInterestingly the gov.uk website and everything around it is a prime example of software that just works. In terms of performance and accessibility. I work/volunteer for a non-profit design agency and we use the the uk.gov design system and I just love it: https://design-system.service.gov.uk/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/
- NoImmatureAdHom 1y agoI have had very different experiences!
- Nextgrid 1y agoThe UK is wealthy enough to do it, if it wanted to. The thing is, the UK rewards grift way more than actual honest work.