
Why GM Hired 8,000 Programmers - wyclif
http://www.wsj.com/articles/gm-built-internal-skills-to-manage-internet-sales-push-1424200731
======
maverick2
I am an h1b working in US from past 3 years.Worked in India for 3 as well.
I've always felt that all big companies should be doing their own IT. The only
agenda outsourcing companies have is to increase the headcount.

Technically, 95% people working in them are so challenged. I've seen Java
programmers who don;t know that Android is a Google owned OS and the apps are
written in Java, even when they use Android phones themselves. Culturally, 80%
folks do not make an attempt to learn american way of life. They are high on
nepotism.

The only basic diff is that they know basics of SDLC and some knowledge of
coding. They are otherwise not technically inclined.

I feel more companies should be having homegrown IT. IT is not going to be a
commodity any time soon, better tech will give an edge for some time to come.
It will also improve the overall culture of companies in automobile, bank or
other markets.

~~~
matt_s
We often joke that with the turnover rate we are essentially a University for
people offshore to learn from when they are doing IT. It takes so much hand-
holding and rote instruction to get things done, once they learn and are
proficient they want to move up.

Generally speaking, are the vast majority of folks offshore just doing their
time before moving up? I sense this is culturally what people want to do - you
know move into ever increasing status job titles. Trying to find senior
technical people that want to continue that is hard.

~~~
maverick2
Yep all off-shore people want is an opportunity at on-site. Not to learn new
tech or experience a different culture or have better management skills. But
to earn some $$$. There are some good companies that do really quality work at
off-shore(mostly India) - like ThoughtWorks, Nagaro etc.

Since I am one of those off-shore guys who's now at on-site. But not one day
has been like when I feel I am in software business, its human resources
business.

Also, I find American managers much better than Indians(I am Indian myself ..
just speaking out honestly). Americans rewards talent better, are not racist
and don't encourage nepotism.

------
free2rhyme214
[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fgm-
built-internal-skills-to-manage-internet-sales-
push-1424200731&ei=KPzkVL3MMMj0oAS8-YD4Bg&usg=AFQjCNFsgf0pP-5TtbUD4wIHhJoHt9fbfQ&sig2=UyyAgzgbQJ8afu8_rBo0PA&bvm=bv.86475890,d.cGU)

Non pay wall link.

~~~
vmarsy
For some reason even that link doesn't work, I have to manually google "Why GM
Hired 8,000 Programmers" and then it's fine

>
> [https://www.google.com/search?q=Why+GM+Hired+8%2C000+Program...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Why+GM+Hired+8%2C000+Programmers&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

~~~
free2rhyme214
As mentioned by many others, please copy and paste the link into google. The
first link that appears will work.

It would be helpful whoever posts to HN to not use paywalled links so this
discussion isn't brought up every time.

~~~
developer1
What is with this? I thought Google announced in the past that sites serving
different content to its crawlers than real members would have those results
removed from their index. Is this some ridiculous loophole whereby it's ok if
the link works with a google referrer but not directly? So stupid. If the link
is not truly open, it should not appear in search results, simple as that.

------
jrochkind1
Googling suggests that _Google_ employs approximately 18K software engineers,
best as anyone can tell. And Microsoft maybe 40-60K. Amazon probably under
10K. (All of this is pretty much guesses and estimates, I googled around to
see what people thought).

Hm.

~~~
mattzito
Google's most recent quarterly report has the following info:

" As of December 31, 2014, we had 53,600 full-time employees: 20,832 in
research and development, 17,621 in sales and marketing, 7,510 in general and
administrative functions, and 7,637 in operations. "

So generally in line with what you said.

~~~
beachstartup
i'm not sure... google is certainly a company i would expect to have any
number of software engineers in all of those departments, and also plenty of
non-software people (biologists, economists, psychologists etc.) in core R&D.

------
thorntonbf
It strikes me as terribly inefficient to house the software on dealerships'
servers - not to mention a change management nightmare given the different
competency levels amongst dealer IT personnel.

I'm also curious about the size and scale of all of this. 8,000
developers/engineers isn't that many when you measure that cost against a
$3B/year HP deal. But, it seems like it's way more than it needs to be. And,
the costs associated with this bloat is going to be absorbed by consumers.

~~~
wvenable
What's the story with GM creating dealer protection laws? Don't those laws
exist to protect dealers from the manufacturers.

~~~
deeviant
That's how they started(and with a heavy lobbying effort from dealers), but
it's lately been used to attack Tesla's business model, which does not use in
independent dealers.

~~~
wvenable
The dealers, I'm sure, are doing more lobbying against Tesla than the other
manufacturers.

~~~
cheriot
They're going to be the face of the lobbying because they're local to
legislators being lobbied, but I wouldn't assume that means anything about who
pays the bills.

------
zallarak
8,000 programmers for selling cars online? That sounds ridiculous. I also
thought that dealers affiliated with GM lobbied to ban direct sales of cars.

~~~
mattdclemens
I suspect that number is sum of all their IT support staff, e.g. QA, admins,
etc. I would wager the core development was done with at most 5% of that.

~~~
therobot24
the real answer here

------
NickSharp
Are these in the Detroit area? That's great for the region. Michigan has great
schools and a lot of talent, but the lack of top software jobs causes a brain
drain.

Who knows, in a few years small groups of these engineers may be founding
their own startups.

~~~
c0nsumer
Many of these were transitions from other firms.

For example, I am part of this 8000, and I, along with many peers, were hired
from HP to (at first) do the same job as before, but for GM. We had previously
been contractors or part of HP Enterprise Services with GM as our customer.
So, for a good number of these it wasn't a bunch of jobs being created but a
simple insourcing shift.

It's been roughly two years since my transition over to a direct job and I've
been happy with the choice to take the offer. There's nifty things happening
here, way more flexibility and opportunity than before, and GM's a good
company to work for.

ADDENDUM: I wouldn't consider myself a programmer; I'm more of a systems
engineer / troubleshooter / sysadmin who writes small utility things as-
needed.

~~~
smackfu
"Insourcing" doesn't sound like it would be very simple since I don't see what
incentive HP has to let the people go to GM.

~~~
c0nsumer
With all of the recent layoffs that HP has had, I'm glad I'm no longer there.
Working directly for GM feels considerably more secure than HP ever did. As
others have said, I suspect it was an easy way to shed a bunch of employees
without having to pay severance.

------
frankydp
GE and GM have really warped the developer employement market in Atlanta. GE
snapped up a crazy amount(thousands reportedly) of devs for their new
integrated dev shop. This drove salaries up across the board.

~~~
shostack
I'd say that's a good thing. Companies outside of the Bay Area are realizing
the value of technical talent.

------
zedpm
I love to hear about companies insourcing development. There are still myriad
ways that a project can fall to pieces, but paying for internal developers is
a step in the right direction.

------
will_hughes
"Until now, the closest that the market has come to online shopping for new
vehicles has been third-party websites like TrueCar Inc.,"

Someone should tell that to Tesla Motors.

------
bio4m
8000 seems like an awfully high number for whats effectively an e-commerce
website. Be nice to know some more details of whats happening behind the
scenes.

~~~
csours
8k across all of the IT orgs. This project was highly visible to the consumer,
which is probably why the author picked it to write about.

A lot of the other stuff is not sexy at all, like data center consolidations.

------
mathattack
What's interesting is that GM essentially sold off their IT to EDS in the 80s.
You have to be a very well run company to do your own IT well. I'm not
convinced that GM is very well run. I do see some of the points that others
have made regarding offshore work. Yes, these problems do exist, but they also
exist in unmotived onshore workers.

------
damm
I wish HN detected Paywall links and would reject them. Sifting through
comments to find a link that works is :(

~~~
coralreef
One trick is to paste the url into google

------
eyeareque
Paywalled links should be banned

~~~
wyclif
OP here. Unfortunately, it's not that simple: you can't post a redirected link
and expect the story to make the front page.

------
treve
The posted link has a paywall.

~~~
zedpm
Just copy the URL and paste it into Google. Click the link from the Google
search results and there should be no paywall.

~~~
ars
That doesn't work anymore.

Not sure if it doesn't work at all, or just if you've seen the article first,
and then try it.

~~~
yurymik
It does. Try
[https://www.google.ca/?#q=http:%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%...](https://www.google.ca/?#q=http:%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fgm-
built-internal-skills-to-manage-internet-sales-push-1424200731) \-- click on
the first link under "In the news" headline.

Just make sure that request header has proper referer:
"Referer:[https://www.google.ca/"](https://www.google.ca/")

------
sixQuarks
8,000 programmers working for 3 years for this? jesus christ! The site looks
like something from the late 90s. What a waste

~~~
csours
8k across all of the IT orgs. This project was highly visible to the consumer,
which is probably why the author picked it to write about.

A lot of the other stuff is not sexy at all, like data center consolidations.

[Pasted from another comment]

------
nugget
Non paywall link:

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/gm-built-internal-skills-to-
mana...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/gm-built-internal-skills-to-manage-
internet-sales-push-1424200731)

~~~
arboroia
I think this should work:
[https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...](https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCEQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fgm-
built-internal-skills-to-manage-internet-sales-
push-1424200731&ei=H_zkVMG4KcjX7Qa83IBY&usg=AFQjCNFsgf0pP-5TtbUD4wIHhJoHt9fbfQ&sig2=BnAchdy17fnWBJ_cPYeQfg&bvm=bv.85970519,d.ZGU)

