Boeing Outsourced Its 737 Max Software to $9-an-Hour Engineers

Tsing

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Boeing's 737 MAX Software was clearly flawed, and the mystery of why is slowly unraveling. New comments from the company's engineers suggest that the fault lies with lower-paid workers.

Boeing had been laying off its own experienced workers and hiring temps, mostly from India, to work on the software. They were only making $9 an hour and didn't have much of an aerospace background.

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.”
 
The fault lies with the highest paid workers.
It doesnt matter what the serfs do, it matters whether its allowed into the final product.
 
Actually the article states the software that was specifically at fault (MCAS) was not outsourced.

Boeing said the company did not rely on engineers from HCL and Cyient for the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, which has been linked to the Lion Air crash last October and the Ethiopian Airlines disaster in March. The Chicago-based planemaker also said it didn’t rely on either firm for another software issue disclosed after the crashes: a cockpit warning light that wasn’t working for most buyers.
 
Outsourcing ANY part of your core design and IT infrastructure/application setup for Critical systems is ALWAYS a mistake. Sure that initial delivery might happen in time and be what you thought you needed. But when **** breaks 3 years later or you need the code updated you will never get the same people back and they will have to learn the entire process over again before they can fix the problem.
 
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