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Bangalore Beats Silicon Valley
An anonymous reader writes "The inevitable has happened. Bangalore, which grew under the shadow of America 's Silicon Valley over the last two decades, has finally overtaken its parent. Today, Bangalore stands ahead of Bay Area, San Francisco and California, with a lead of 20,000 techies, while employing a total number of 1.5 lakh engineers."
It's amazing that during an election year that I've yet to hear one thing from Dean or Bush about this. Is everyone bought and paid for?
I honestly think that a lot of the current commentators are dead on when they say that this is a "fad" and this will eventually balance itself out. Wait until some corporations get a gut full of having their code halfway across the globe. Most companies aren't willing to let you work at home and yet they're willing to hire hoards of people they'll never meet to write their code? Heh. This will right itself eventually.
A couple of years ago on a train journey to Mumbai I had a long conversation with an Indian software engineer. Once he'd got his University degree he got a job in Silicon Valley, but only stayed a couple of years because he realised that although salaries are lower in India he would actually be a lot better off in India because your dollar goes a lot further there. In India he could actually afford servants - a maid, cook etc. as well as a big house with a swimming pool and car. So if you read this type of story and think of hundreds of poorly paid Indians in sweatshops hacking out code, think again.
As long as the wages are low and the quality of code is at least acceptable (and, these people DO do good work), India will continue to get the jobs. Remember: The PRIME responsibility of the board of directors for a publicly traded company is to MAKE MONEY for it's stock holders.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I've always wanted to post this in an "offshoring" /. article, but have always arrived late to the game.
Firstly, a disclaimer: good on India. I hold nothing against them for accepting, with open arms, North American tech jobs as fast as CEOs rush to send them over.
That being said, I believe we (ie. North Americans) are being fucking morons about this. We are willingly shipping them high skilled jobs so Mr. CEO can report a quick profit the next quarter. In the mean time, we are losing an entire generation of "junior" positions. I believe that will spell the end of software development in North America.
My current job is that of a software architect. It is a high-skill job requiring very specialised knowledge in the area where we make software. I got to my current job by starting as a junior programmer at this company. After 3 years I was bumped up to "intermediate" developer. After 3 more it was a bump to "senior" developer. Now they think I know enough to design the systems I build.
Two years ago my company opened an office in Bangalore (we have offices across the globe). All new hiring has been through that office, and they ship the programmers from India to various other offices for training on projects. In another years time, programmers in that India office will have performed enough implimentations to be considered "intermediate" developers. In a few more years they'll be senior, and in a few more they'll be in my position.
As this is going on in India, all our own new grads will be working at Starbucks serving lattes, and will be left out of the loop.
All for the sake of a quick stock boost. Good on India, shame on us!
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan