The bosses up the top were so abstracted away from what developers were working on, even the MDs of tech departments were in the dark. This was due to a thick barrier of (project, delivery, platform) managers between devs and execs.
I can remember one time a director of "innovation" came in for a surprise visit. Most of the managers had went out for a team lunch. So I was left with my other socially awkward colleagues babysitting this exec, along with the head of testing.
After about 5 minutes of showing the exec what we were actually working on, his eyes lit up, as though we had just discovered fire. In the end he was really happy and amazed on what we were working on.
All he had ever seen were some mockups and a video demo. We also got a chance to mention some of our grievances.
About two weeks later, our team had magically had some "extra" budget to buy Macs and 24inch monitors.
No reason not to switch really (unless you really, really need to deposit cash)
Quite why that means the UK head needs to go ....
Obviously if they were force to move they'd go to a new fangled IT system, not adopt some old tried and true system (those are too tied to the banks that developed them).
And of course expect the usual dissing by the 'frameheads on how these new systems are frail and how their old systems "are much better and foolproof" (they aren't)
Banks treat development as just like call centers... they know they have to pay for warm bodies, any warm body will do.
As long as you had a CS degree, no matter what uni, no matter the grades, your experience, and if you were breathing during the interview they would hire you.
He joined a team where managers ruled supreme, and while many of the developers were good, they were probably worse than devs on the other teams. Managers were given a budget, and ultimately they didn't care if software was delivered without any testing if the financial risk wasn't that great. This led to developers following orders and rushing to complete stuff with frightening bugs, deployed systems that didn't match source control, etc.
It's a different process, but it seemed to be the same outcome. They hired top-tier graduates, but taught them nothing, and put them under enough constraints that it didn't matter who they hired. They were always going to deliver absolute shit.
Other banks are paying for their tech sins with technical debt -- paying Cobol devs ludicrious money because there is no one else.
Can't see traditional banks with this attitude of placing bodies in seats surviving long term.
What happens to the lowly engineers pressured into cutting corners to meet an arbitrary deadline and denied the resources they needed? No such lavish rewards for them.
I like that phrase a lot, I think I might use it :)
What makes you think they didn't get their overtime paid well enough?
