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Exporting Myself?
sennomo asks: "Years ago, I was told that I needed a degree to get a programming job anymore. So, I went to college. A couple of years and thousands of dollars later, there was still no job for me, in spite of my all-powerful B.A. in C.S. The most common explanation I get is that jobs are being exported out of the country. So, I've decided to export myself. Moving to higher ground, so to speak. I have heard a few others discuss this, but how many are actually trying it? And how is it going for them? Are there any hotspots for American expatriate programmers?"
Why not just accept less money than you've been asking? Look for non-profits and similar who need programmers but can't pay competitive salaries. Then, when you build up some experience, you might be worth something more than the paper the degree is printed on and won't have trouble if you decide to look elsewhere for work.
Years ago, I was told that I needed a degree to get a programming job anymore.
They lied.
So, I went to college. A couple of years and thousands of dollars later, there was still no job for me, in spite of my all-powerful B.A. in C.S.
Sucker.
The most common explanation I get is that jobs are being exported out of the country.
Awfully convenient explanation, huh? Just in time for the retirement of the "Bad economy" excuse.
So, I've decided to export myself. Moving to higher ground, so to speak.
Or, so to hope. Higher ground. Yep. That's what I'd call a third world country.
Here is the painful truth - if you had anything to offer, you'd be employed. My company is hiring like crazy, but we are extremely selective (about 1 in 100 candidates pass the tests.)
Actually, let me back it up a little and not be so terribly insulting. The situation is this - companies are hiring, but they are scared of repeating the bust. One of the least talked about reasons that everything has fallen apart in the tech sector is the sheer worthlessness of so many of the people in it. I have worked with some of the worst programmers I can imagine over the last three years. These people will be shed, but it will be a painful process.
My advice is this: suck it up, do some hobby programming, build a portfolio of samples (nothing sells a candidate like good sample code), and keep on plugging. You'll have to prove yourself.
The whole expatriation thing is a terrible idea. If you go through with it, have fun.
Anonymous Hoser
Sorry, but to be a good analyst (this IS the type of "designer" you suggest, correct?), one should put in the time, so to speak, as a programmer for awhile. Nothing is more mismatched than a book-only-learned analyst. They are good at design patterns, concepts of reuse and well-read, but give them a real-world legacy mess (or just an older interface or module) and they suffer a breakdown in productivity. "Here's fix this crappy site in 2 weeks. No you cannot rewrite it."
That "manual labor for your fingers" is actually quality time spent solving a pool of math, logic, algorithm and communication problems. Also, the trials of explaining such tasks, issues and achievements in easy-to-understand words to PHBs is valuable. Don't underestimate simply being a programmer.
To poster: I am guessing you didn't want to live in debt forever, so you skipped the BS and got just the BA. Maybe you can work part time using whatever skills relate to your field, and get the other 2 years over with. Heck, some people make a career out of attending classes just that way. As to your question, I'm at a loss. I'm doubting you'd like living as a programmer in another country...
I'm in no better of a situation, with my all-powerful BSEE degree. But I am fully confident that no matter where you go, the best opportunities will always be in the U.S. Why else do you think everyone tries to come here to work?
We have an abundance of industries, no bloody civil wars at the moment, a great environment of free speech, and an astronomical average standard of living. Even if you don't get a programming job right now, you'll still be better off than most of the rest of the world. Assuming you could even manage to arrange it, consider the conditions you would have to accept. Work 14 hour days in cramped conditions with 100 people speaking a different language, make perhaps 10% of what you would make in the US, live in a tiny apartment in foreign city, and face termination at any moment because there are 100 more people waiting outside every day to take your place. Yeah, people might joke that it's already this way in the U.S., but that's just not the case. Even if you sell auto parts, or pour concrete, you're still better off.
The economy IS turning around. I'm optimistic even though I was laid off right before Thanksgiving. At this point, 1.5 years of mechanical engineering experience isn't really helping me get an electrical engineering position, but I am confident that I will find something. If you leave now, you might miss out on our next boom. And this one might be real growth, not a bubble of hopes and gambles by investors.
Maybe our garden-variety programming jobs are all moving overseas. OK...maybe this is just a natural progression? We used to make shoes and T-shirts here, right? And then the other developing countries said "Hey, we can do that!" and we moved on to more complex and technological things. Now the other countries have had a chance to pick up some engineering textbooks and say "Hey, we can do that too!" So now it's time to find something even more specialized and technologically advanced. I think that the future of engineering in the U.S. is the consulting specialist. Boilerplate work is already being taken over by other developing countries; here we have to target the jobs that are one-of-a-kind, bordering on actual research instead of just application. I may be wrong, but that's one possibility.
Anyway, get some job, or get some more school. All of this engineering talent floating around in the U.S. is a huge untapped resource, and I happen to know that the U.S. doesn't let untapped resources just sit there forever.
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I have a High School degree with only a couple additional formal education classes. I am currently a Senior Software Engineer with a software consulting company that has me in a long term placement at a large multi-national technology firm.
Most every job I have I got through networking. I am president of a local software development group (PC users group for developers) that I attended for years previously. I always try to work with other people to help them so they know I am a resource. I look for opportunities to present at conferences or other groups. I look for writing opportunities and other avenues to promote my skills and abilities.
Sometimes I have worked for far less then I should have for what I was doing, but the result is I have acquired enough experience that my lack of degree is less important. Be willing to start at the bottom and work your way up. The opportunities are there, if you are willing to look.
As an example, I was laid off about a year ago. I had a new job in 2 days, and 3 or 4 other offers within a week. All the offers were from networking. Most the jobs I get interviews through Monster or other listings they say I am over qualified for. Imagine that.
I would eventually like to go to school and get a C.S. degree. But I imagine that I will get my employeer to pay for most of it while they are paying me to work and apply what I learn. Education is a good thing, but it is not what will get you a job.
"Anything is possible with enough programmers, time and pizza." (Substitute caffeine for time as needed.)
A BS and a BA both take 4 years typically... Depending on the school, you can easily spend more on a BA than a BS. You have to do more math to get the BS, which may be what scared the poster off. You're probably thinking of an Associates degree.
As for the "analyst" thing, that's not really what I was talking about. There are plenty of entry level design jobs that involve implementation. The only types of tasks that are getting outsourced with any success are fully speced out. He needs to get in on a new product that needs some independant thinkers instead of somebody to read the spec and write the code as specified. Maintnence of legacy code would also be good for him. If you're not the type of person that can be productive dealing with a legacy mess, you're in trouble, because soon there won't be any jobs for that type of person.
I'm in Spokane, a city suffering from chronic economic problems, and I didn't have any trouble getting a job. I sent out a grand total of a half-dozen resumes, got two job interviews, and one job offer (I accepted). A few major factors that helped me get a job were that my degree was a BS in Math and Computer Science, rather than straight CS, that I'd held jobs (computer programming and otherwise) before, and that I'd been involved in several major freeware projects as a hobby.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Amen to this..... In fact it reminds me of a joke I once heard on /.
A Mathematician, a Biologist, and a Statician are watching people going in and coming out of the building on the other side of the street. First they see two people going in - after awhile three people come out.
The Biologist concludes, "They're mating!"
The Statician says, "No, no, no - The measurement wasn't accurate."
The Mathematician says, "If someone else goes in, it'll be empty."
I don't think I wasted their time. If they didn't want to respond, they didn't have to.
...
If you think you wasted your time, that's your problem.
No, I think you wasted my time, and yes, that is my problem. But hey, what is Slashdot for, if not wasting time?
However, you are probably a troll, who would post something nasty no matter what I said.
Yeah sure, that's right, I'm a troll.
People like you all over Slashdot are happy to attack details (relevant or otherwise) and ignorantly go off on tangents about which you know little or nothing, while blatantly ignoring or baselessly refuting key issues.
I think you are the one blatantly ignoring key issues. Let's have a little more information, in order to get at why you have had such issues with success.
18 November 2001: I sometimes dream of mixing languages to get the best from each. However, wherever I work, the boss tends to pick out everything for me, which usually means VB on a completely Microsoft platform.
So you were a VB "programmer".
20 November 2001: I used to work for a company whose star product was an AI-drive porn-filtering web proxy. Our biggest prospective clients were the governments of China and Saudi Arabia. They didn't want just a porn filter, though; they wanted to block plenty of religious and political sites, too. Fortunately, the filtering software never even worked in the first place.
So, you had no issues working for people who were doing something that you apparently find immoral, and also have no issues with your employer failing.
22 November 2001: I used to be employable without a college degree. Since last fall nobody will even interview me. Now I'm wasting two years and thousands of dollars in a small university where I'm learning next to nothing, just so I can get a damn B.S. so someone might hire me.
So, as a high-and-mighty VB programmer with roughly 3 years experience at this point, went to college for a computer science degree, thinking you were wasting your time and not learning anything, and were only there to try to get hired.
28 December 2001 Before last year, I could find work without a degree. However, I found that since October 2000, nobody even wants to interview me. So, I'm back in college for a BS of CS. The fastest I could possibly complete it would be in 2 years, but since I'm trying to work at the same time, it will take me 3. C'est la vie.
So you rushed through your degree as fast as possible.
11 February 2002: Before the bubble burst, I had a measly B.A. in Spanish, but I still got hired at startups for various jobs, mostly web-oriented stuff like search engines. I made as much as $650/wk for a short while, which ain't too shabby for where I live.
So, I've decided to use up my remaining financial aid (even though it will add to my debt) to return to college for a B.S. in Computer Science. I'm hardly learning anything, since I already learned plenty on the job. (Unfortunately, my university does not count life experience for college credit.) Some professors have even told me that I am capable of teaching their classes, but that won't get me out of the credit requirements.
So you think you already learned plenty as a VB programmer. I am sure the average VB programmer is qualified to teach computer science classes, yeah right. I suspect that the only thing you are qualified to teach is Freshman Spanish (which would pay $30,000 in the right area, by the way).
Best Slashdot comment ever