$9 Per Hour Code in Boeing Jets
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$9 Per Hour Code in Boeing Jets
I haven't seen this posted here yet: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boein...204657048.html
In short, they felt that they didn't need senior engineers on mature products, so they outsourced aircraft software development to companies using $9 per hour coders.
In short, they felt that they didn't need senior engineers on mature products, so they outsourced aircraft software development to companies using $9 per hour coders.
This rings a distant bell in my mind.....from about 12 years ago. When I came across a guy sat on a beach in Goa doing precsely that to make a crust.
He was a druggie who clearly had a history of self-harming.
The chain always breaks at the weakest link....
Fly safe folks
Cooch
He was a druggie who clearly had a history of self-harming.
The chain always breaks at the weakest link....
Fly safe folks
Cooch
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This is a bullshit misleading article, like the "Boeing falsified records" one.
The number of outsourced Indian engineers involved in MCAS: big fat zero.
All of the major aerospace manufacturers have Indian outsourced suppliers & developers. Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, etc.
Airbus might have the largest Indian presence, with > 5,000 Indian employees/contractors in the supply chain including over 1,000 engineers last time I looked. Probably much more now. And I doubt their pay structure is any different from Boeing's.
Are we all going to stop flying Airbus now?
The number of outsourced Indian engineers involved in MCAS: big fat zero.
All of the major aerospace manufacturers have Indian outsourced suppliers & developers. Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, etc.
Airbus might have the largest Indian presence, with > 5,000 Indian employees/contractors in the supply chain including over 1,000 engineers last time I looked. Probably much more now. And I doubt their pay structure is any different from Boeing's.
Are we all going to stop flying Airbus now?
This is a bullshit misleading article, like the "Boeing falsified records" one.
The number of outsourced Indian engineers involved in MCAS: big fat zero.
All of the major aerospace manufacturers have Indian outsourced suppliers & developers. Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, etc.
Airbus might have the largest Indian presence, with > 5,000 Indian employees/contractors including over 1,000 engineers last time I looked. Probably much more now.
The number of outsourced Indian engineers involved in MCAS: big fat zero.
All of the major aerospace manufacturers have Indian outsourced suppliers & developers. Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, etc.
Airbus might have the largest Indian presence, with > 5,000 Indian employees/contractors including over 1,000 engineers last time I looked. Probably much more now.
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It's a typical "news" story, produced to attract mouse clicks. There are heaping shovels full of innuendo and misleading statements, while facts are in short supply.
The ex-Boeing employees quoted offered little of substance. Vague generalities are poor substitutes for specific and compelling detail.
The ex-Boeing employees quoted offered little of substance. Vague generalities are poor substitutes for specific and compelling detail.
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Futurama: Slow down.... the article clearly states that there were no Indian engineers in the MCAS development.
You have also stated, with numbers, that this is a potential systemic problem across the industry; I never made a point in my OP, but this is one.
I have no dog in this hunt.
You have also stated, with numbers, that this is a potential systemic problem across the industry; I never made a point in my OP, but this is one.
I have no dog in this hunt.
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I haven't seen this posted here yet: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boein...204657048.html
In short, they felt that they didn't need senior engineers on mature products, so they outsourced aircraft software development to companies using $9 per hour coders.
In short, they felt that they didn't need senior engineers on mature products, so they outsourced aircraft software development to companies using $9 per hour coders.
The reference to that wage was made by a consultant who has no idea how much Boeing's subcontract employees are paid. Your careless and inaccurate pronouncement illustrates how such inflammatory claims are spread.
“Engineering started becoming a commodity,”,” said Vance Hilderman, who co-founded a company called TekSci that supplied aerospace contract engineers and began losing work to overseas competitors in the early 2000s.
U.S.-based avionics companies in particular moved aggressively, shifting more than 30% of their software engineering offshore versus 10% for European-based firms in recent years, said Hilderman, an avionics safety consultant with three decades of experience whose recent clients include most of the major Boeing suppliers.
With a strong dollar, a big part of the attraction was price. Engineers in India made around $5 an hour; it’s now $9 or $10, compared with $35 to $40 for those in the U.S. on an H1B visa, he said. But he’d tell clients the cheaper hourly wage equated to more like $80 because of the need for supervision, and he said his firm won back some business to fix mistakes.
Last edited by ThreeThreeMike; 30th Jun 2019 at 09:04.
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ThreeThreeMike: Please provide finer granularity on your wage assertions, rather than throwing darts. I summarized the article in my view, perhaps incorrectly. I am the messenger. I would love it if someone could refute the article with solid numbers.
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Other than that, you are asking me to provide proof they aren't being paid that wage, which is the reverse of how such things work.
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Refutation is readily apparent. All you need to do is read the portion of the story I quoted in my post. There is no link between Boeing, its software, and coders being paid $9 per hour.
Other than that, you are asking me to provide proof they aren't being paid that wage, which is the reverse of how such things work.
Other than that, you are asking me to provide proof they aren't being paid that wage, which is the reverse of how such things work.
I ran across many similar statistics through other sources. Seems to me that $9 per hour is a decent wage in India for software developers.
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This analysis breaks down wages and other factors by country:https://towardsdatascience.com/compa...d-8d2a1ba3218a
I ran across many similar statistics through other sources. Seems to me that $9 per hour is a decent wage in India for software developers.
I ran across many similar statistics through other sources. Seems to me that $9 per hour is a decent wage in India for software developers.
Low wager (driver, cleaner etc.) will get typically about 100$/month.
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This analysis breaks down wages and other factors by country:https://towardsdatascience.com/compa...d-8d2a1ba3218a
I ran across many similar statistics through other sources. Seems to me that $9 per hour is a decent wage in India for software developers.
I ran across many similar statistics through other sources. Seems to me that $9 per hour is a decent wage in India for software developers.
Where in your Google searches did you find proof Boeing is using outsourcing for software development that pays their employees $9 per hour?
That's the specific claim you and Yahoo made.
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Again you fail to account for your assertion Boeing is using Indian labor that's paid $9 per hour. The deflection in your latest post does nothing to prove your false premise.
Where in your Google searches did you find proof Boeing is using outsourcing for software development that pays their employees $9 per hour?
That's the specific claim you and Yahoo made.
Where in your Google searches did you find proof Boeing is using outsourcing for software development that pays their employees $9 per hour?
That's the specific claim you and Yahoo made.
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.
][/QUOTE] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...hour-engineers
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Again you fail to account for your assertion Boeing is using Indian labor that's paid $9 per hour. The deflection in your latest post does nothing to prove your false premise.
Where in your Google searches did you find proof Boeing is using outsourcing for software development that pays their employees $9 per hour?
That's the specific claim you and Yahoo made.
Where in your Google searches did you find proof Boeing is using outsourcing for software development that pays their employees $9 per hour?
That's the specific claim you and Yahoo made.
Per payscale.com, HCL Software Engineers salary in India: https://www.payscale.com/research/IN...chnologies-Ltd.
It's worth noting, there are five classifications of software in aviation - Level A, B, C, D, & E. Level A is for flight critical software - e.g. FBW and FADEC, while Level E is pretty much 'don't care' if it's not 100% correct since it has no impact on flight safety - e.g. IFE and some maintenance tasks. Naturally B, C, and D fall in between those extremes. This is all documented in DO-178, which also outlines the level of testing and documentation required for the various integrity levels.
Outsourcing Level D and E software is pretty common, since it's really not that important.
As for summer interns, the engine company was responsible for creating the FADEC s/w (although we had significant input into the requirements), so we didn't write code. However we had a lab, where we tested the FADEC software to make sure it properly interfaced with the various aircraft systems, and that our requirements were incorporated correctly. During the 747-8 development and flight testing, our FADEC lab was staffed with several summer interns, running tests that had been developed by our engineering group, and by all accounts they did a first class job of it.
BTW, most software problems in Level A, B, and C s/w were related to the requirements - either wrong, incomplete, or confusing - not the actual implementation.
Outsourcing Level D and E software is pretty common, since it's really not that important.
As for summer interns, the engine company was responsible for creating the FADEC s/w (although we had significant input into the requirements), so we didn't write code. However we had a lab, where we tested the FADEC software to make sure it properly interfaced with the various aircraft systems, and that our requirements were incorporated correctly. During the 747-8 development and flight testing, our FADEC lab was staffed with several summer interns, running tests that had been developed by our engineering group, and by all accounts they did a first class job of it.
BTW, most software problems in Level A, B, and C s/w were related to the requirements - either wrong, incomplete, or confusing - not the actual implementation.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
All comments about the ethnicity of the $9 an hour programmers aside, I have to sit back and think about how complex systems are on a modern aeroplane for anybody, regardless of pay grade, to be able to be fully conversant with all the systems interactions that can occur.
If you remember back in the Reagan era, there was a program called the Strategic Defence Initiative, more commonly referred to as 'Star Wars.
Amongst all the scientific commentary of the time, I cannot forget that of David Parnas, whose lucid insight may have turned the tide against relying on technology to overcome a threat created by technology.
His position was that the SDI was such a complex system, that a counter-system would be so commensurately complex that it would not be possible to test it until the actual threat arose, and then it would be too late to fix the inevitable bugs.
I wonder if we now have achieved that level of complexity in some aircraft systems, where, in our race to relieve the crew of responsibilities and workload, we have created systems that can actually make life more difficult for them if systems are not fully debugged and their operation fully understood?
Those two switches on the engine quadrant controlling trim are so convenient, I have to wonder why their access is not the first thing anybody thinks of when such a problem occurs.
All comments about the ethnicity of the $9 an hour programmers aside, I have to sit back and think about how complex systems are on a modern aeroplane for anybody, regardless of pay grade, to be able to be fully conversant with all the systems interactions that can occur.
If you remember back in the Reagan era, there was a program called the Strategic Defence Initiative, more commonly referred to as 'Star Wars.
Amongst all the scientific commentary of the time, I cannot forget that of David Parnas, whose lucid insight may have turned the tide against relying on technology to overcome a threat created by technology.
His position was that the SDI was such a complex system, that a counter-system would be so commensurately complex that it would not be possible to test it until the actual threat arose, and then it would be too late to fix the inevitable bugs.
I wonder if we now have achieved that level of complexity in some aircraft systems, where, in our race to relieve the crew of responsibilities and workload, we have created systems that can actually make life more difficult for them if systems are not fully debugged and their operation fully understood?
Those two switches on the engine quadrant controlling trim are so convenient, I have to wonder why their access is not the first thing anybody thinks of when such a problem occurs.
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Ethnicity
ve3id brought up an excellent point about ethnicity. To be clear, the article is about locality, not ethnicity; employees within the supply chain from India are producing "some" aircraft code cheaply. Yourdon's book is classic reading for Software Engineers.
178 testability weaves into this nicely. The OP article raises many of these issues in a low-tech manner.
178 testability weaves into this nicely. The OP article raises many of these issues in a low-tech manner.
Last edited by SysDude; 1st Jul 2019 at 02:54.
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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.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...hour-engineers
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.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...hour-engineers
There is no proof whatsoever that Boeing has employed subcontractors whose employees make $9 per hour to write code for the MAX. Same with SysDude's dead link to what is supposedly pay scales in India, which has no relevance at all to this subject.
The Bloomberg writer's assertion that India has no aerospace culture is laughable. Notable German aircraft designer Kurt Tank (perhaps you've heard of the Focke-Wulf 190) became one of the founders of the modern Indian aircraft industry, beginning a long career there in 1955, just eight years after India won its independence from Great Britain:
Tank worked as Director of the Madras Institute of Technology, where one of his students was Abdul Kalam (later Kalam became President of India and designed indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle(SLV) and Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme). Kurt Tank later joined Hindustan Aeronautics, where he designed the Hindustan Marut fighter-bomber, the first military aircraft constructed in India. The first prototype flew in 1961; the Marut was retired from active service in 1985.
The above-mentioned Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam was an instrumental contributor to Indian aerospace industry as well as president of India between 2002 and 2007. As noted, Dr. Kalam did pioneering work on rocketry and missile programs for the government.
Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam :: BrahMos.com
BrahMos Aerospace is a capable and respected firm that builds missiles and satellites.
BrahMos Aerospace - An India Russia Joint Venture
But all I read in these articles regarding the 737MAX and its software is innuendo the semi-ignorant Indians work for Ebenezer Scrooge levels of recompense, while producing work that is filled with errors and must be corrected by real engineers in America. To the horror of Boeing ex-employee Mr. Rabin, we find the recently graduated Indians are at desks just across the street from Boeing. My God!
It appears you both have been fed supposition and innuendo dressed up as news for so long, you cannot ascertain the difference between imputation and factual statements.
Last edited by ThreeThreeMike; 1st Jul 2019 at 17:49.
