A part of another answer Ketharaman Swaminathan’s answer to How does Germany produce so many great engineers and scientists? answers this question.
Let me copy-paste the relevant section from there:
QUOTE
…
These are all traits that are extremely valuable in Engineering. Ergo Germany produces great Engineers.
That said, this is only true in fields of engineering that are relatively old and where pace of change is low. For example, mechanical engineering – an automobile still works on the basis of 4-stroke combustion engine invented in early 20th century; chemical engineering – soda ash is still produced using the same Solvay’s process invented in the mid-19th century.
Now, let’s take areas of engineering like software where
- Pace of change is rapid
- Governing principles are “fail fast”, “flexible”, “user feedback”, “iterate”, and other mantras.
- UX and CX matter a lot.
The aforementioned assets that help Germany produce great engineers in traditional fields of engineering could actually be liabilities in these new fields.
It’s not surprising that Germany hasn’t produced many leading software products, with SAP being the sole exception that proves the rule. Even some German products from traditional fields haven’t become global leaders for the same reason e.g. MIELE washing machine, which may be engineered to run for 100 years but is so difficult to operate that most people may not use it for even 100 hours (at least I didn’t)! I was also amused to see the “hand brake” on a Mercedes Benz car placed on the foot!
With software playing a bigger and bigger role even in traditional products – e.g. electric vehicles, autonomous cars – Germany will need to change a few things at the core of its engineering ethos if it expects to maintain its status as a global engineering powerhouse going forward.
ENDQUOTE