Funny thing – or should I say: True story!
In my most recent blog post
“I want to work in a company which” I wrote about some issues of a random company. I published this article three days before news of this particular company struck me
again in agony. While reading this, keep in mind that this company has no direct connection to me whatsoever.
Apparently the head of department of sales and marketing walked up to the programmers of his division. I have been told he normally would not even be seen in closer proximity of the tech department. However, this time he was obviously in pain and instantly called for a crisis-meeting.
In the meeting there were reports of working hours of the programmers, there were affronting comments on peoples’ work ethics – there even was a printout of an emergency escalation e-mail of a client. Reverse engineering of the misleading rants brought light into the programmers’ darkness. It seemed that the client was waiting for a major software roll-out. Now, while the company seemed to desperately need this client, it forgot to tell the programmers about the roll-out.
Well, what could we say? I’d call it: Software Engineering Fail.
It seems this company lacks basic release management – all they now is hotfixes. Also, there are no reviews, there is no transparent project planning, there’s no testing framework or regression testing. There is no procedure model which in combination with no apparent quality management is certain proof for failure in engineering larger scale software for a living.
What is left to do? I have heard the programmers had a meeting of their own. They talked for hours about basic and pragmatic needs for succeeding in what they are paid for: writing serious software. Seemingly they believe there is still an off-chance for the company to turn around from being solely a solutions provider for its clients while raping its own employees.
We’ll see, time will tell the truth. My personal attitude in this matter: If things won’t change quickly and those guys are not only searching for a job just to pay their rents, but also to bring joy and knowledge to their life: run for it, guys!
