[hospitalJail]

>Last time I hired an embedded software engineer from them, the guy felt he was in a very tiny niche within the company and it was a fluke his group still existed to write code.

I've worked there. There are two types of people: "Lifers" which are the people you described. They are content with doing their pieces and never taking a step outside the cog they are part of. This is most of the people there.

Then there are temporary workers. Contract or Independent minded, these are the people who have no trouble calling out the problem and working on it, even if its outside the job scope. They didn't learn this at GM, they learned this somewhere else. They are temporary because they see that GM is a zombie company. There are too many useless cogs that you described. There are likely more people tracking the completion of work, than those doing work. These people are looking at their resume and how they can grow their skills to leave and make more money.

I feel like finding good workers at large companies are like playing the lottery.

[phkahler]

>> There are likely more people tracking the completion of work, than those doing work.

I completely agree. I interviewed there and above a certain level all they really want is the ability to bargain with others for resources if you or your own people can't get something done or done on time. It's not a bad thing, it's just the entire focus at that level, which leads to more chiefs than indians.

I think it stems from interdependence of components and the huge supply chain. You can't miss or it impacts the model year changeover. IMHO they need to work on that so they can have more incremental change if needed.