I spent quite a while interviewing and looking for opportunities before I got one in July, which let me duck out right before the ugly three rounds of layoffs since August. The wild thing is the swing back and forth -- GM stood up a huge software organization in Tel Aviv, Israel only a few years ago (somewhere around 2018) which had responsibility for many devops projects, the UltraCruise software that was announced, but never made onto a program, all after GM acquired Cruise the autonomy company. That entire development actually caused a huge braindrain out of GM and the Detroit area of roboticists, computer vision experts, etc. When that didn't work out, long after the company should have pulled the plug, they hired Mike Abbott from Apple, who brought in many other Apple people, all to... surprise pull the plug on CarPlay. That group took about 2 years to gut the Tel Aviv office and many jobs in Detroit, as well as Phoenix and Austin (IT hubs for the company) and start a whole new incredibly expensive office in Mountain View, where they're paying about triple for the same role as was being done in Detroit or Austin or Tel Aviv. In the process, the company managed to alienate many of the best performers and lose anyone who could get out, while missing on several major deliverables, like the stop-ship and massive updates to the Blazer EV after the Ars Technica article on it. Hilariously, that entire open source ecosystem that debuted on the Blazer EV is no longer really internally prioritized, since the first layoff in August lost all of the FOSS maintainers employed at the company and most of the software architects responsible for its integration into future generation vehicles. Honestly, couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys...
It sounds like you got out at the right time. I live in the Greater Detroit area. It’s frustrating to me to hear cycles of the automotive companies claiming they need technical talent, especially in Michigan, and yet run companies and programs so haphazardly. I don’t think they realize the repetitional harm they’re incurring. Everyone at my employer has the mindset of “never work in auto” because these events keep happening.
It's hard for a world class software engineering company to do large software projects. It seems straight up impossible to throw together a large organization in a non-software company and pull off some large project.
When was GM ever not a "soulless and dishonest company"? I certainly don't remember any "soul" in their cars in the last 50 years, just a bunch of really terrible cars, though admittedly they're better now than they were in the 70s-90s.
I spent quite a while interviewing and looking for opportunities before I got one in July, which let me duck out right before the ugly three rounds of layoffs since August. The wild thing is the swing back and forth -- GM stood up a huge software organization in Tel Aviv, Israel only a few years ago (somewhere around 2018) which had responsibility for many devops projects, the UltraCruise software that was announced, but never made onto a program, all after GM acquired Cruise the autonomy company. That entire development actually caused a huge braindrain out of GM and the Detroit area of roboticists, computer vision experts, etc. When that didn't work out, long after the company should have pulled the plug, they hired Mike Abbott from Apple, who brought in many other Apple people, all to... surprise pull the plug on CarPlay. That group took about 2 years to gut the Tel Aviv office and many jobs in Detroit, as well as Phoenix and Austin (IT hubs for the company) and start a whole new incredibly expensive office in Mountain View, where they're paying about triple for the same role as was being done in Detroit or Austin or Tel Aviv. In the process, the company managed to alienate many of the best performers and lose anyone who could get out, while missing on several major deliverables, like the stop-ship and massive updates to the Blazer EV after the Ars Technica article on it. Hilariously, that entire open source ecosystem that debuted on the Blazer EV is no longer really internally prioritized, since the first layoff in August lost all of the FOSS maintainers employed at the company and most of the software architects responsible for its integration into future generation vehicles. Honestly, couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys...
It sounds like you got out at the right time. I live in the Greater Detroit area. It’s frustrating to me to hear cycles of the automotive companies claiming they need technical talent, especially in Michigan, and yet run companies and programs so haphazardly. I don’t think they realize the repetitional harm they’re incurring. Everyone at my employer has the mindset of “never work in auto” because these events keep happening.
It's hard for a world class software engineering company to do large software projects. It seems straight up impossible to throw together a large organization in a non-software company and pull off some large project.
Mike abbot was a poor hiring choice by GM. He was practically managed out at ACS, and from sound of it also at GM given the 1 year stint.
One of Mary Barra's big things to change right away was dress code.
Before her, 10+ pages to describe the rules around how to dress. For loads of workers who never interact with anyone.
She changed it to 'dress appropriately'
So no... GM is doing pretty awesome as of late BECAUSE OF Mary.
When was GM ever not a "soulless and dishonest company"? I certainly don't remember any "soul" in their cars in the last 50 years, just a bunch of really terrible cars, though admittedly they're better now than they were in the 70s-90s.
Being undeniably soulless and dishonest is still major progress from powering anti-Semitic political campaigns, world war 2, and the Holocaust.
https://jweekly.com/2006/12/01/financing-of-racist-anti-semi...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/n...
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/general-motors-and-the-...