Looks like Crowdstrike outsources their SDET/QA while keeping most software engineers stateside.
I generally don't have an issue with outsourcing, but it's obvious they're trying to save money on QA here. A few 200k SDETs could of probably caught this.
I see this at tons of companies, they see QA as less important...
You're arguing that on shoring QA would reduce the probability of something going wrong. I'm neither going to agree nor disagree.
However, I think the failure here is to mitigate the impact of something going wrong. Their rollout plan was fundamentally flawed - it shouldn't have taken out so many machines at the same time. It should have been rolled out in stages, with only 1 machine at most at any given customer receiving early versions.
It's best to assume a bug will get through 1 day or another, and spend some time mitigating the other axes too.
A higher paid QA might of told management, hey this is a very high risk change. If we're going to roll this out let's limit it to reduce the numbers of people affected.
If you on shore your core development, but outsource all of your QA, I'm forced to assume you value QA less.
I say this because this case a data file was changed. Probably done thousands of times without an issue.
QA would have never said "we need a staged rollout for this". Developers and those who set the process should do it.
But many companies don't view SDETs as equal partners in the developing process.
Anyway the entire world knows they cut corners here.
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/falcon-update-for-windows-h...