
TSB boss Paul Pester to step down after IT fiasco - 0xbadf00d
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45406322
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mothsonasloth
I've never worked in software for banking however I have worked in a large
TelCo in the UK.

The bosses up the top were so abstracted away from what developers were
working on, even the MDs of tech departments were in the dark. This was due to
a thick barrier of (project, delivery, platform) managers between devs and
execs.

I can remember one time a director of "innovation" came in for a surprise
visit. Most of the managers had went out for a team lunch. So I was left with
my other socially awkward colleagues babysitting this exec, along with the
head of testing.

After about 5 minutes of showing the exec what we were actually working on,
his eyes lit up, as though we had just discovered fire. In the end he was
really happy and amazed on what we were working on.

All he had ever seen were some mockups and a video demo. We also got a chance
to mention some of our grievances.

About two weeks later, our team had magically had some "extra" budget to buy
Macs and 24inch monitors.

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jackweirdy
If nothing else, that saga gave us the perfect case study in what can go wrong
with total cut-over migrations, rather than incremental releases, in complex
systems

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kerrsclyde
His first Treasury Committee appearance earlier in the year was very telling,
in completely in denial about the extent of the problems, or issues/fears of
their customers without even a hint of apology - I moved my banking elsewhere.

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yani
Fix the issue then resign. Take responsibility not compensation.

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robbick
All of the 'big' UK banks are still on similar out dated technologies as TSB
was, they were the first to try to move and it hasn't paid off. I hope the
other major banks a) do it better b) don't use it as an excuse never to do it

~~~
benbristow
Which is why I switched to Monzo. Their tech is so much better and is
constantly being improved.

No reason not to switch really (unless you really, really need to deposit
cash)

~~~
hssys
I've got a Monzo account, which I'm a big fan of. However, Monzo have
definitely had more outages and planned maintenance than the other online
banking service I use, which is provided by a different UK bank. I'd consider
that a reason not to make the jump.

~~~
Sholmesy
This was true before they launched their own payment processing.

They often had outages in late 2017 and earlier due to 3rd party reliability.

I haven't had an outage since the current accounts have been released.

No affiliation; just a user since Beta.

~~~
davb
I've been a user since the beta too, and while they do have less outages than
when they used a third party payment platform, they certainly still have more
outages than my other UK bank.

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hguhghuff
Banks treat IT systems as of no value, they outsource overseas, they seriously
think any developer brain is the same as any other.

Banks treat development as just like call centers... they know they have to
pay for warm bodies, any warm body will do.

~~~
PunchTornado
Yeah, I've worked in a bank like that.

As long as you had a CS degree, no matter what uni, no matter the grades, your
experience, and if you were breathing during the interview they would hire
you.

~~~
EnderMB
A mate of mine worked for a large bank in the UK, and his experiences were
different to this. One of the managers was Oxbridge educated, so they almost
exclusively hired CS grads from Oxford and Cambridge. In their mind, they were
the cream of the crop, and hiring the "best" graduates meant they'd have the
best IT tools. I say "almost" because he managed one team, and he went into
this persons team after his projects were wound down.

He joined a team where managers ruled supreme, and while many of the
developers were good, they were probably worse than devs on the other teams.
Managers were given a budget, and ultimately they didn't care if software was
delivered without any testing if the financial risk wasn't that great. This
led to developers following orders and rushing to complete stuff with
frightening bugs, deployed systems that didn't match source control, etc.

It's a different process, but it seemed to be the same outcome. They hired
top-tier graduates, but taught them nothing, and put them under enough
constraints that it didn't matter who they hired. They were always going to
deliver absolute shit.

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pjc50
I was reading up on this in relation to Sabadell and found:
[https://www.ft.com/content/c5157c1e-20ab-11e5-aa5a-398b2169c...](https://www.ft.com/content/c5157c1e-20ab-11e5-aa5a-398b2169cf79)
\- in 2015 newspapers were warning that this was "particularly risky".

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gaius
With a golden parachute and his pension fully intact? That is conspicuously
absent from the article but it is usually the way. And no bar in being a
director of another firm. The executive class are a law unto themselves.

What happens to the lowly engineers pressured into cutting corners to meet an
arbitrary deadline and denied the resources they needed? No such lavish
rewards for them.

~~~
crunchlibrarian
Even the Wells Fargo execs responsible for actually breaking laws and stealing
from customers got their compensation. If you can afford a top drawer law firm
then why not steal everything that isn’t nailed down? There is no rule of law
once you get to this level.

~~~
sarreph
> _why not steal everything that isn’t nailed down?_

I like that phrase a lot, I think I might use it :)

