Comment by nonamechicken | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nonamechicken | Hacker News Reader

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I really doubt 737 Max's failure has anything to with outsourcing to India. Usually, most of the work outsourced to India are low value work (what I call as 'near brain dead' type). I don't think Boeing would outsource anything even remotely critical to a company like HCL. From the article:

>Based on resumes posted on social media, HCL engineers helped develop and test the Max’s flight-display software, while employees from another Indian company, Cyient Ltd., handled software for flight-test equipment.

>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.

Even inside US, Indian engineers are not allowed in critical software that goes into defense and (most likely) airlines, only citizens can do that. So, there is no way they would have outsourced safety critical stuff to HCL.

For DOD no foreign you are correct. Unfortunately 737 max is not a no foreign DOD project. Please understand these outsourcing companies are extremely powerful and influential. They bring In highly trained and connected sales teams to negotiate big deals at the executive and political levels. In this case 11bn deal to Boeing for 1.7bn in services contracts for India. Please consider what level at Boeing that sort of deal is brokered at? Ask yourself what the repercussions are for internal folks who call out the outsourcing firms? As you suggest outsourcing firms often start out with non critical tasks like operations and maintenance. Through this process they actually consider those contracts as investments to gain access to learn the lay of the land especially where the critical systems are and who manages them. Then these firms often including architecture leads who are camouflaged sales people do their trade craft of above board and from my perspective suspicious below board tactics until they open the door to more critical projects and higher paying contracts. HCL, TCS, etc work on critical system not only in this industry but also in Medical, Infrastructure, Utilities, Telecommunications, Broadcasting, etc, etc. I wish you were correct but sadly I’ve seen the transition first hand and have been brought in to unwind what outsourcing firms have done in the name of cost savings. At the same time I was told and my teams were told to investigate, identify and fix the issue but don’t blame the outsourcer or this will be your last contract. This i was told was due to the level of the outsourcers executive Sponsership. Consider the influence these firms have over the execs and the reputation at stake with anything negative or other then thank you so much for the great work. In fact we were told that the outsourcer was to be treated as the customer. Even though months of war rooms and rework fell squarely on their ineptitude.

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