They are trying to hire 2000 more employees in software and electronics. I don't know why you would want to work there when they might fire you for raising security issues though.

It's really easy. You take interns in so you can teach them the things you want them to know and the procedures you want them to follow. Those who don't fit, you cut because "there was no cultural fit".

This way you have hordes of "software engineers" who don't raise such matters. Maybe that's the reason why those German companies find it so difficult to hore external experienced consultants?

Two words: "cost center".

Two more words: "run away!"

R&D is always a cost center ironically. It is such a stupid classification that has established itself. More strictly only the sales team would be a profit center. But even customer service has to make a profit today with selling maintenance and upgrades. Of course they will be more reluctant to replace anything.

As if this segmentation would improve cooperation between departments if every department is their own little mini company.

Software development is a cost center everywhere except at actual software companies, where it is instead "production" with "deliverables", considered like the kitchen in a restaurant.

So now companies that do other things are calling themselves software companies so that their software development will not have to be a cost center. Or "technology companies", as Bloomberg, e.g., which delivers financial news, calls itself now.

It is deeply stupid, but entrenched. I don't know how software stands at SpaceX, which is a "technology company" that, nominally, makes rockets. Is the software that runs in processors physically on board a rocket production, thus a profit center, while the stuff that runs on the ground is facilities, thus a cost center?

They did understand it enough to produce their famous Gaswagen engine, weren't they.

"What is this variable toggleFraud used for?"

But not enough to not get caught.