Exact Software vs DHL?

A friend of mine will be joining Exact Software which reminded me of the annoying SMSes sent by Jobstreet recently about the Exact walk-in interview. I don't know if Jobstreet is just spamming every registered users or Lina really thinks that I am qualify to work for the "other" side.

Anyway, that friend told me that Exact will be adding around 180 more head counts in this round of the recruitment to their current 200. Suddenly, I realized that Exact is big here. It is actually their Asia development center. So that made me think, if Exact can setup a development center here and their local staff are really doing the coding work, why can't DHL?

From what I gathered from the people that I know who work for DHL. Most of the coding work are outsourced either to local vendors or to the X-Men. Most of the DHL local employees are doing so call higher level value added work. Some people look at coding as grunt work, no value. Any Tom, Dick and Harry with basic programming skill can do the work. So the DHL staffs are then only responsible for producing requirement specification, coordinating and liaising with the vendor doing the actual coding work, testing and code review.

Beside producing the specs, I am not sure how higher level or value added the other responsibilities are. But its looks pretty darn boring to me. Testing and code review? X-Men written? You must be kidding me man! I won't even think about it even if DHL pays me 5 figures for allowance on top of the basic salary.

CMM Level 5? Who cares?! Once you are in, you will be there for good! I doubt you can get another job which can pay that kind of money for doing testing and code review. Unless of course you are in the management level, then that's a different story. Nevertheless, some people are quite happy with that kind of work and its good money.