A big brain move. First, they cut CarPlay/Android Auto because they want to provide a full custom experience. Second, they fire the people who are supposed to be responsible for that experience.
I'd venture a company like GM would just try and replace them with as many third party contractors or outsourced vendors, and not actually "slim the team down", etc
I thought so too, but to be honest I haven’t missed it too much in my Tesla. It already covers my streaming music use cases, and built in navigation is good enough.
Not that I think this is a Twitter-in-a-weekend project, but… what is a car infotainment system doing?
Show a map, working Bluetooth drivers (obviously the white whale of the modern world), control a music playlist, and route a phone call. Aren’t there already standard protocols to communicate with a phone for all of these things already?
>Didn’t they also go with a plan to cut CarPlay and android auto. Seems like they are on track to shittify and get left behind
No, this isn't the case at all. To enshittify (you forgot the "en") means to get worse over time, as a result of poor management decisions that seek to increase profits. It implies that there was a time before, when the thing was actually good. But this is GM here: it's been making terrible cars for many decades now. I don't really see how it can enshittify.
Companies have been really hammering software engineers with layoffs, but the need for software to be written has only been increasing. I think the execs at these companies have been snowed over by Copilot demos and vastly overestimate the productivity gains it can realize.
In a time when cars are increasingly more connected than ever. More sensors and controls. Literally more software in cars today than ever before and they do this?
The remaining legacy, domestic auto manufacturers are just kind of circling the drain. They all have stupid problems and largely seem to have ridden the coat tails of an older generation that vowed to buy American.
Anecdotally, but my Ford F-150 has so many software bugs it’s insane. It’s mechanically reliable, but the software is terrible.
* backup sensor don’t work about 10% of the time
* backup camera won’t engage about 1% of the time
* main screen will boot loop a few times before it fully turns on about 5% of the time
* heated and cooled seats seem to choose random setting when the car is remote started.
* lane centering system will crash if you try to take it through a turn that’s too tight. Have to turn the vehicle off, open the door to fix it.
* my trailer system won’t remember custom made trailers. I don’t really have a use for the system, but annoying none the less.
* auto power folding mirrors often get confused about their state when shutting down or starting the car up. Annoying, but easily fixed.
* my digital instrument panel will occasionally not turn on
* my digital instrument panel will occasional forget all of my custom settings. Different problem than above.
* Not really a bug, but the car has soooooooooo many popup notifications. There will literally be status messages that are overlaid by an almost identical, but different message. Thank you, F-150, I know that I plugged my cooler into the outlet in the bed. Please stop asking me if I want the generator on. The car is running, I want the generator on.
The physical vehicle is rock solid and I’m extremely happy with that. However, I just want to rip out all of the electronics and replace them with the magic that Kia/Hyundai built in their vehicle.
I largely get this impression anytime I step into an American vehicle. It feels like it was designed by a committee of out of touch executives.
The sensors and controls are made by companies like Bosch. GM doesn't need any expertise in this stuff, they just buy parts from companies that have it.
Not true. A few exceptional vendors like Bosch excepted, manufacturers are increasingly in-sourcing development away from the tier suppliers. It's a lot of work managing them to get quality outcomes and that system has repeatedly bitten manufacturers hard in the past decade. It also lengthens development timelines significantly and raises the cost of mid-development changes, when they actually need faster, more responsive development practices.
The issue with companies like GM is that while most people recognize what I've just said internally, there's a lot of conflict between traditional management processes/styles/cultures and the changes they need to make to adapt. These kinds of layoffs tend to result from the financial fragility they've built up. When some minor event puts clouds on the financial horizon, management only understands one tool to make changes and that's layoffs/pay cuts.
Cutting 1000 software engineers doesn't necessarily mean they won't be needing the services of 1000 software engineers. They could just be moving to contract out the work instead of having more in-house staff.
> The moves come two months after former Apple Inc. executives David Richardson and Baris Cetinok were promoted to senior vice president roles in the group
I wonder if they're doing this to just move the jobs to the Bay Area.
Connect the dots as in why it makes sense? Or provide evidence? I can't tell you why it would make sense to the executives, but below are job searches for keyword software. You can yada yada and say maybe it's fake postings in which case I'm not sure what to say - but it's well known internally GM wants to expand the Mountain View office.
Automakers already have satellite offices in major tech areas. Toyota, Mercedes, GM, Ford, and Kia/Hyundai all have bay area offices that mainly cater to software people already. I know this layoff affected the Austin GM office too.
The hardware design is done by geographically separated teams for various reasons, often in multiple countries. You just ship the hardware where it needs to go, which you have to do anyway to get it from the factory to an office building.
I have a slightly contra view here. Conway's law means you often ship your engineering structure in your code. As such, larger dev teams will necessitate more modules. This will lead to more code and to more bugs
Some modularity is desired. Enough to support a thousand devs? Hard to say.
Don't take this as defending specific headcounts, but rather a response to the general idea. Modern vehicles have probably the highest inherent complexity of any thing most people regularly interact with. These are heavily regulated, safety critical electro-pneumo-mechanical distributed systems built to survive decades of severe conditions and piecemeal maintenance by the kind of people who work at jiffy lube.
Every one of those attributes adds an order of magnitude to the headcount. There's simply no option to do small teams that might escape Conway's law. Sometimes I'm amazed cars work at all.
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Show a map, working Bluetooth drivers (obviously the white whale of the modern world), control a music playlist, and route a phone call. Aren’t there already standard protocols to communicate with a phone for all of these things already?
Typically cars come with their own complete voice control system.
Customers expect much of the car to be accessible remotely and well, my GM Bolt EUV is far behind everyone else in this regard.
No, this isn't the case at all. To enshittify (you forgot the "en") means to get worse over time, as a result of poor management decisions that seek to increase profits. It implies that there was a time before, when the thing was actually good. But this is GM here: it's been making terrible cars for many decades now. I don't really see how it can enshittify.
Deleted Comment
I suspect this a poor move on GM's part.
Really great company that the tax payer was forced to rescue.
Anecdotally, but my Ford F-150 has so many software bugs it’s insane. It’s mechanically reliable, but the software is terrible.
* backup sensor don’t work about 10% of the time
* backup camera won’t engage about 1% of the time
* main screen will boot loop a few times before it fully turns on about 5% of the time
* heated and cooled seats seem to choose random setting when the car is remote started.
* lane centering system will crash if you try to take it through a turn that’s too tight. Have to turn the vehicle off, open the door to fix it.
* my trailer system won’t remember custom made trailers. I don’t really have a use for the system, but annoying none the less.
* auto power folding mirrors often get confused about their state when shutting down or starting the car up. Annoying, but easily fixed.
* my digital instrument panel will occasionally not turn on
* my digital instrument panel will occasional forget all of my custom settings. Different problem than above.
* Not really a bug, but the car has soooooooooo many popup notifications. There will literally be status messages that are overlaid by an almost identical, but different message. Thank you, F-150, I know that I plugged my cooler into the outlet in the bed. Please stop asking me if I want the generator on. The car is running, I want the generator on.
The physical vehicle is rock solid and I’m extremely happy with that. However, I just want to rip out all of the electronics and replace them with the magic that Kia/Hyundai built in their vehicle.
I largely get this impression anytime I step into an American vehicle. It feels like it was designed by a committee of out of touch executives.
The issue with companies like GM is that while most people recognize what I've just said internally, there's a lot of conflict between traditional management processes/styles/cultures and the changes they need to make to adapt. These kinds of layoffs tend to result from the financial fragility they've built up. When some minor event puts clouds on the financial horizon, management only understands one tool to make changes and that's layoffs/pay cuts.
I wonder if they're doing this to just move the jobs to the Bay Area.
42 jobs listed in Mountain View https://search-careers.gm.com/en/jobs/?search=software&locat...
6 in Detroit https://search-careers.gm.com/en/jobs/?search=software&locat...
16 in Austin https://search-careers.gm.com/en/jobs/?search=software&locat...
It also seems like designing the hardware and software in the same place would be useful, so it actually feels like they were designed to go together.
The hardware design is done by geographically separated teams for various reasons, often in multiple countries. You just ship the hardware where it needs to go, which you have to do anyway to get it from the factory to an office building.
Some modularity is desired. Enough to support a thousand devs? Hard to say.
Every one of those attributes adds an order of magnitude to the headcount. There's simply no option to do small teams that might escape Conway's law. Sometimes I'm amazed cars work at all.
Large teams churn in ways smaller teams don't. Competing teams, as the different product teams almost certainly are will be different.
Why work at GM, as a second rate employee (physical engineering is first tier) for much lower than what you make at basically any tech company.
like what, exactly?