It remains the mystery at the heart of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max crisis: how a company renowned for meticulous design made seemingly basic software mistakes leading to a pair of deadly crashes. Longtime Boeing engineers say the effort was complicated by a push to outsource work to lower-paid contractors.
The Max software – plagued by issues that could keep the planes grounded months longer after U.S. regulators this week revealed a new flaw – was developed at a time Boeing was laying off experienced engineers and pressing suppliers to cut costs.
Increasingly, the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have relied on temporary workers making as little as $9 an hour to develop and test software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace – notably India.
In offices across from Seattle’s Boeing Field, recent college graduates employed by the Indian software developer HCL Technologies Ltd. occupied several rows of desks, said Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer who worked in a flight-test group that supported the Max.
The coders from HCL were typically designing to specifications set by Boeing. Still, “it was controversial because it was far less efficient than Boeing engineers just writing the code,” Rabin said. Frequently, he recalled, “it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly.”
And Apple wants to move phone manufacture there? Good luck.
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[–] 19502654? ago
I've been looking around at getting a new gaming computer lately. Yeah, I know it's a degenerate waste of time but I can afford it and just don't fucking care anymore. My box is six years old and can't keep up anymore. Go to Alienware to look around, never bought from them. Can't find the configuration/price range I want. O.K. let's go to the customer service robochat, that should be fun. I get hooked up with, I shit you not, a brain damaged Indian named Kumar or Pajeet or something like that.
This guy was so retarded he could barely type standard international English. I only had one or two very basic questions. After a bit of perfunctory Q&A he was essentially asking me to do his job for him. An absolutely clueless shitstain. But I wasn't mad tho, because the moment I saw the tard's name I knew it would be hopeless. Here I am trying to throw money at this corporation but they're just too greedy and stupid to make the sale. Fuck this gay earth.