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U.S. Programmers An Endangered Species?
CommanderData writes "USA Today reports that US Programmers are an 'Endangered Species' and expects them to be 'extinct' within the next few years, replaced by offshoring and H-1B visa holders. They suggest people will manage overseas projects, become self-employed, or switch to other fields. What do my fellow code-dinosaurs plan to do before the asteroid hits?" A report on Newsforge (which is part of OSTG along with Slashdot) shows the flip side of the coin.
Sure, programmers will be extinct within the near future in Western countries. But there's a difference between programming and software engineering; I personally think that software engineering will still take place in the western countries, the whole documentation, analysing, quality assurance, perhaps testing... the whole process of developing software except the programming will still occur in Western countries... let the code monkeys in India have it, anyone can write code, but they will still need a good software engineer to develop a piece of quality software. :-)
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
that's it nothing else really
I like things that are sweet and not things that are lame. --
oh oh it's gotta be like dat
just plain idiocy.
aaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!
I'm extinct!
Wait a few millenia and the rest of us will have another fine batch of crude!
Become self employed or move to india
Sweet! Now it's finally against the law to kill and eat me!
--
Free gmail invites with comments from satisfied recipients!
Sadly, programmers are particulally endangered due to their inability to mate in captivity.... or anywhere else!
I have worked at too many companies where we needed coding done on the fly with proprietary systems. This usual meant sitting down the programmer with a customer waiting for a return call ASAP. How would I do that with a programmer in India? I don't think I could overcome the language issues and the proprietary nature of the software. The publishing company I worked for would be a good example of that. Print jobs required programming. The jobs often were for 1 million or more pieces so mistakes could be catastrophic. It wasn't unusual to go racing to a programmers cube at 5PM with a programming requirement that had to be finished in 30 minutes or so to go to press.
http://www.busyweather.com/
They suggest people will manage overseas projects, become self-employed, or switch to other fields
Hallelujah - I'm ready to switch NOW.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I figure Wal-Mart is always an option. Hmm, stock shelves or pass-out shopping carts... decisions, decisions.
No matter where you go... there you are.
It si teh future.
Coincidence?
This hits home for me being a programmer... but then they mention a pay difference of $52k for immigrants and $60k for americans. Yet they go on to say that people are taking jobs at a 40% pay cut. They must be using that fuzzy math.
...at least like to get laid before going extinct
this?
You can't be a "programmer" and also be "self-employed"?
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
Eventually they'll realize the mistake. There will always be devs over here.
fp dc@inet
My company has already dropped all offshoring (though they still outsource to a limited extent) and I hear of others doing the same.
It turns out it's way more efficient to pay a guy sitting right there three or four (or ten) times as much as some other guy sitting way the hell across the ocean, who doesn't even really care if your project (or company) lives or dies.
It also turns out it's better to use someone who understands your core buisness and the poeple working there than some faceless channel of communication.
I guess USA Today is just a little behind the curve.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
but in reply to the post, i don't think american programmers will ever truly be extinct..some of the best programmers are americans..and america does have IT and CS programs in pretty much every city and town
i have to say though, it seems like there's a lot more european programmers though, half the programs i have are credited to some sort of european guy
Didn't Bush tell us to go to a community college and educate ourselves so we can get higher paying jobs?
Become a PM
What language issue?
Indian english is not a problem to understand once you adjust to the accent.
To be fair I have worked with many immigrants from around the world, but adjusting just isn't that hard for me anymore.
I've had a job programming web applications for about 3 years now. Another part of my job is providing helpdesk support, fixing computers, network administration, and web design. If any one of these areas get outsourced, I still have a job.
In addition, I'm working on getting my teaching certification in mathematics. Like any industry, it's good to have a backup plan if everything falls apart. While I haven't noticed any of my friends' jobs being outsourced, I do know that it's always a possibility and have tried preparing myself in the ways listed about in case anything should happen.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Maybe at least the code monkeys will be forced to step down their pedestal and realize that despide their self importance, they are the modern equivalent of plant workers, quite expandable and replacable.
Maybe if a professional conscience had emerged sooner and software design had been veiwed as an important endeavour instead of a quick and dirty way to make a buck, screw the client and run, coder would have a professional order, like doctors and lawyers, and would at least have social respect.
All whats left is to unionize and hope for the best.
You know its too bad that programmers are endangered, luckily they have mostly evolved into software engineers. Its just too bad we can't pick which jobs are endangered, I think we could afford to have lawyers a little more endangered. But please don't let them be come endangered by evolving, I can't imagine what a lawyer evolves into but it probably has fangs.
Well, as a U.S. programmer, I have to say that if I can get my 15 minutes of fame on TV, I don't particularly care if it's with David Attenborough simply because I'm listed as endangered... Any TV face time is good TV face time.
there is a reason many shops that were offshoring are pulling their resources back, hmmmmm, would that be Quality issues.
We went from a Manufacting Economy , to a Service Economy , to now what... You want FRIES with that SIR?
Why do people post these stories?
Programmers wont be "extinct" and you know it... what a stupid thing to say.
Didn't we have a similiar scare about 15 years ago with the auto industry and everyone thought that auto-workers' jobs would go overseas? Hasn't happened yet.
Quit being so paranoid.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
There will always be work in government or defense industries which will be too sensitive to outsource, or send off-shore. There will probably be some in commercial enterprises as well.
I expect that there will still be many places which will consider it to be a major plus to have the developers on-site. Control can be a major issue.
We also haven't seen the fallout of "net-centric" warfare yet either. What will happen when those 500+ North Korean hackers, and the uncounted ones in other countries, let loose during wartime?
The day I start worrying about what's written in the press is the day I hang up my keyboard. Given that they cannot accurately report any tech story I'm meant to worry up this crap.
And all those reports on consumer spending dropping off. Yeah, that's partly my fault.
... then I guess take-out is cheaper than home-cooked.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
and other pathetic pasttimes
If any managers really believe they can outsource all technical work and still have a job, they're nuts. For one, if they don't have face to face contact with even one of their workers there isn't a chance in the world they can manage effectively. For another, once you've collected all your brain power overseas, just how many weeks do you think it would take them to realize they could just drop the overseas manager and run the business themselves?
No sane person could believe having all their workers overseas wouldn't be the end of their job too. Only those managers that seem to think they're the ones who are single-handedly responsible for the company's success could delude themselves like that.
The quality of the programming we get from India is the same as the quality of technical support.
--
Government data shows Democrat and Republican spending patterns.
I know I'm not exactly the first person to think of this, but I'm trying to get out of the IT industry. In the long run, I just don't see any way I can be competitive with offshoring. Granted, there are certain jobs that can't be outsourced that way, but it would be too much work to try to get one of the few remaining positions -- increasing competition for fewer jobs.
I don't much like agreeing with him, but I think Bush was right in the debate the other night when he said that the 21st century economy is going to necessitate job and career changes -- not just in IT but in other areas as well. Even down to more mundane things like checkout clerks at grocery stores (which isn't much of a career, admittedly, but you know what I mean). Those are on their way out, being steadily replaced by automated checkout machines, and those who currently still work as checkout clerks had better start thinking about what they're going to do next because they're either going to leave the job of their own accord, or they're going to get laid off when those checkout machines become commonplace.
Why not work for a company that does Department of Defense work (where you need a security clearance)?
Those jobs will never be outsourced.
Isn't that the situation for pretty much every manufactured thing already? Products are designed in USA, Canada, Japan, UK, etc. and then produced in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Korea, etc. I guess software is no different after all.
Sorry guys, but that was an outlier. I don't see how anybody can take this seriously...
If current trends are indication, I predict that there will be some really intense whining.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
I'm a UK UNIX support/developer/sysadmin, and I'm being relocated to Seattle under the H1-B programme..
:)
I'm not planning on stealing anyone's job - my company is creating a new position for me here, and the experience I have with the company's products from working in the UK office is one of the main drivers for moving me, rather than hiring someone else.
I'm also not a cheaper option - my salary is on a par with US techies, and my company has to pay $$$ for the visa and relocation expenses. So, it's a sink or swim world - might be positions available in the UK or other places. It's not the third world outside, you know - this is free movement of jobs and labour
David
Certain areas of programming lend it self away from offshoring and H-1B visa holders. Here in the defense industry we have the confidence that our programing requires US citizens holding security clearances. This, however, does cement our job secturity. While we do not have to worry about offshoring, the vacillating DOD defense fund and nearing presidant election leave us a bit chary.
But even the optimists believe that many basic programming jobs will go to foreign nations, leaving behind jobs for Americans to lead and manage software projects.
And in 2007, they will run an article about how few jobs there are for Americans looking to "lead and manage software projects".
Once you outsource the real skill needed, why wouldn't the jobs managing those workers be outsourced?
Yes, like other posters I do not believe my career is in jeopardy, having long since moved past programming into software engineering. Still, I've recently found myself drawn to hobbies that when I look at them could potentially replace SE as a profession should I ever choose to do so. Feel free to add to this list with replies:
E lectronics (ok, this isn't too far from software, and about the same endangered status).
:-)
Automotive mechanics
Carpentry (soon to branch out and study architecture and general contracting)
Farming/survival/self-sufficiency
Anyone have others? What hobbies to computer professionals enjoy that might branch out into alternate careers? I discarded Lego building immediately
Nerd Rock In Progress
Haven't we been hearing this kind of stuff for the last X many years? It's either "No programmers will be employed in the US ever again!" or "Programming jobs increasing 1500% in the next 10 years!" I'm sticking with what interests me rather than going with a job that's more secure but makes me want to slash my wrists with a letter opener every morning.
hat rationale makes no sense to the Programmers Guild and other groups that have sprung up to resist the tech visas. Since more than 100,000 American programmers are unemployed -- and many more are underemployed -- the existing 65,000 quota is inexcusably high, they argue. H-1B and L-1 visas are "American worker replacement programs," says the National Hire American Citizens Society.
The question is, how many of them are good programmers vs. programmer wannabe out of a paper mill during the boom that only cared about the money?
The average wage for an American programmer runs about $60,000, says John Bauman, who set up the Organization for the Rights of American Workers. Employers pay H-1Bs an average $53,000.
Average difference of $7,000 doesn't seem high enough to go through the hassles of H-1 program. I'm wonder if many of the unemployed programmers are making good use of networking and job searching skills.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Even a sub-par human mind would have trouble accepting this tripe as truth. Consider the following statement:
Not everybody agrees programmers will disappear completely.
That's simply insipid. It's akin to saying, "Not everybody agrees that Dick Cheney sticks rodents up Dubya's ass" or "Not everybody agrees that Linus Torvalds secretly plans to incorporate stolen code in his operating system." This sort of statement is right at the top of the list of ways to lend creedence to a completely baseless notion.
Mr. Francis, you do not name a single expert who believes that American programmers will cease to exist in next few years. If I were feeling generous, I'd simply state that you're a mind-bogglingly lazy journalist who cannot be bothered to include one shred of evidence supporting your most alarming charge. As I'm ticked off, however, I'll say that you're lying through your fucking teeth, that you didn't speak to or read of a single expert who believes that American programmers will be extinct in a matter of years, and you just wanted something sensational and outlandish to jazz up a less-than-mediocre piece on the state of computer jobs in America.
David R. Francis, you're a hack.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Why, modify the source to take all those chopped off decimals in my company's financial transactions and deposit them into a private account, duh!
I'm curious as the actual cost of outsourcing.
It's very easy to say that since an indian costs 20% of my salary, that it's 5 times cheaper. But i doubt that.
Bangalore doesn't seem to even have a reliable phone network yet, and i know it's a lot harder to communicate with my indian peers than my north american/european/japanese ones. I'm sure there are certain tasks that lend themselves to outsourcing, but my experience suggests that trying to move parts of a complex system is a bad idea.
Fear not... India is losing jobs to China faster then they are gaining them. And China will lose them just as fast to Open Source(TM) programmers in the western world that work for free.
Go Linux! We will laugh last!
And if Bush wins, the H1-B problem goes away, since noone from outside the US will dare to come here (except the 4k/day across the mexican border) even to visit with all the anal probing involved.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
They're making the classic mistake of thinking that programming is the same as creating software, and are making implications then that programmers are the creators of software, completely ignoring computer scientists and software engineers.
There is a clear difference between writing the code for a program and actually determining what code is needed or making a new, original algorithm. Those fields are the only ones that matter now and are the only ones that have ever really mattered.
Also, there's the field of those doing spot fixes and working in-company for major sites who can afford to have their own support staff--those are really more administrators and systems engineers.
All those fields happen to require knowledge of programming, but it is the least of their prerequisites.
For those who crave analagous examples, consider whether a sculptor is a stone cutter, an architecht is a diagrammer and builder, or a rocket hobbyist is a welder.
Corporate managers don't care much for quality, if cheaper labor improves their profit more. And of course they don't care about the American economy that subsidizes the "guest workers" who arrive, work for less than permanent residents, and take their own profit from their labor back to countries where their savings buy more. They have to come here, because programming jobs in America continue to boom, though some of that growth is to compensate for lower productivity. Because quality programming requires close feedback with those who accept the products, and other experts in the specific business implemented. Americans can protect both our labor market and our reputation for quality.
--
make install -not war
of course programming won't become extinct. This is trash journalism at it's best.
Oh wait, it is USA Today, I didn't expect anything else
The death of the American Programmer has been heralded many times before. Back before spreading terror about the eminent collapse of our non-Y2K compliant world, Ed Yourdon wrote a little book of doom called The Rise and Fall of the American Programer, in which a dim future was projected for our overpaid and underworked behinds.
He wrote this is 1993.
Some of you will remember that the booming economy of the mid to late 90s in which being able to say "internet" landed you a tech job.
It will take more years to evaluate the real impact of offshoring on the American Programmer. If programming is what you enjoy doing, you will always have work (although you will have to be flexible in what you program).
As always, don't panic.
In the embedded software space, where real-time interaction between various interrupts means that system design and hard core debugging skills are king, outsourcing, and especially overseas, will never be a factor.
Less is more.
I'd rather go for the cockroach option.
Time to re-read my Kafka.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The way everything is being sent out of the country to 'cut costs', most major markets in the US are on the endangered species list, its not just programmers..
While products may be cheaper, no one will be able to have decent enough jobs to make the money to buy them anyway..
And since we don't have our unparalleled manufacturing base any longer, ( 'high tech jobs are the future' nonsense ) we are the mercy of everyone else in the world..
Should scare you, it scares me..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I am currently in the last stages of forming a new venture in which at least five coders will be hired. I have used offshore (India) coders in the past, which has worked well for some projects. This is not however my prefered working relationship. In my experience, even with advanced communication technologies, there is no substitute to 'being there' for building an intuitive, fast, team.
Arachninecronymphocranialpheliaphobiacs Anonymous
What do my fellow code-dinosaurs plan to do before the asteroid hits?
Vote for Kerry.
As your knowledge workers become more expensive, expect to see those jobs migrate to still cheaper labor markets in other developing countries. Sure, the net effect on the global economy is positive, but I can tell you it really sucks to be on the losing end of the outsourcing movement.
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I think it's appropriate to reference the source of the article when possible. This one started out here, on the Christian Science Monitor.
"This signature quote intentionally left blank"
I saw this coming a while back. Besides kinda buring out I had the desire to earn some "passive" income. So, I sold the big house, bought a couple of small rental houses (one of which I live in) and started getting other people to pay me rent each month. It's nice to go to bed at night knowing that someone is working to pay me rent ;)
I still work FT too, but when the bottom falls out or I decide I've had enough, I'll be ready for it.
And here we have the typical hysterical slop they try to call reporting that is almost the calling card of USA Today.
They sold their integrity long ago, and usually come up with one of these XXX is going extinct bullshit stories about once every 1-2 months.
What do you mean, before the asteroid hits. For a recent graduate with little or no actual work experience in programming, the asteroid hit a while ago. There are too many unemployed or under-employed people to get a foot in the door.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
That's not going to help your sex life any.
...is the feeling of entitlement I've seen in way too many programmers.
If you have remained flexible, been willing to relocate, have a service orientation, and entrepreneurial spirit, I've found this industry to be great for this college non-graduate. Unless they start parking Indian service organizations on off-shore aircraft carriers, my future is secure. If all you expect from programming is leading-edge development and refuse to interact with anything other than a source-code control system, things HAVE slowed down. If you are willing to do boring old service and easy programming for boring old banks, insurance companies and lawyers, and actually interface with real live customers, things are as good as they ever have been. In fact, you'll be turning down work. And these industries demand local, hands-on services.
fallacious reasoning:
It's only logical that offshoring will be brought within the common man's reach in the next few years, causing the totality of code-monkeying to outsource, because lord knows, nobody actually enjoys it.
Rember back in the 80's "Made in America"
We need to bring that back but in a way that shows what companies use American workers.
would be to embrace the dark side.
Imagine Alan Ralsky in a dark suit and respirator mask, extending a black gloved hand: "Join me and we will rule the Internet as Employer and Employee!"
Yes, it does cost more than it saves first place.
But it is an easy enough concept to communicate from one managerial level to the next higher one.
And it is safe, as the responsible one will be promoted by the time the cost wave hits back.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
I know that it is imperative for a programmer to know the industry that they are creating applications for. I work in the the Security Guard industry which has a very specific need in scheduling and that very few vendors even come close to supplying accurate software for that need. I truly doubt that someone half way across the world would know the needs of my industry let alone for my company.
Arctic Turtle
My job won't be going overseas any time soon, because I work at a bookstore and do programming for them as part of my regular salary (which just went from 8.00 dollars an hour to about 11!!) So if everyone were as dumb as me, and were willing to work for just over minimum wage, there'd be no need to send jobs overseas.
There's a futures market that examines some of these issues: ITJOBS
First of all, there are some things that will NEVER be outsourced. It is not enough for a lot of job security, but these things are:
1) Jobs needing a security clearance. In my area (Northern VA, this is almost the rule rather than the exception.
2) Jobs that require you to be 'close' to the problem - such as system administration, software engineering for in-house applications, etc.
As more and more jobs are outsourced, something interesting is going to happen: The people who got into this career in the late 90's because they could spell 'HTML' will complain about it, and go away. Those that are left will be the TALENTED people. They will 'move up the food chain' as lower level jobs are outsourced. Those left behind will become the people designing the system , those doing integration, and those doing quality assurance.
Because there are four things we do better than anyone else.
Movies, music, microcode, and high speed pizza delivery.
Does Monkey Boy need to learn how to chant Developers! Developers! Developers! in Hindi?
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Sooner or later the money we spend in India and China will create enough businesses that the Indian and Chinese programmers will be busy writing code for companies in their own countries.
At least I hope so.
Meanwhile, I think American businessmen should show a little patriotism and keep as much work in this country as they can.
I'm a Canuk and we do pass as offshore. Sure, we do get paid more than India but we can react to change requests much faster with no middle man.
If I was not happy with my employer, I'd be happy to start up a consulting firm that can leverage Canadian resources and for the coding I'd rather not do, I'd ship it to India.
BTW - Don't come to Toronto. Housing prices are simply crazy!
If this started to happen, the US would stop giving out H1-B visas. The entire point of H1-B is to supply workers in areas where there is a shortage. They must be periodically renewed, so this process is not a problem. And politically, Indian tech workers are not a political force. They aren't going to be marching on Washington DC to get keep their Visas. And they aren't illegally voting.
Offshoring is actually a bad move for clients who need software development, since it puts so much distance between the software engineer and the customer (plus a possible language barrier). If the engineer and customer can't communicate efficiently and effectively, then the product will suffer in both quality and release date. Most likely, software companies which offshore development tasks will suffer in the not-so-long term, while others, who hire developers close to home, will release better products faster. However, other tasks like nighttime telephone tech support are easily offshored with no consequences.
On its surface your comment was funny, but the problem is that this seems to be all that anyone can offer when asked "now that our jobs are gone, what do we do?"
The jobs that are leaving are high-skilled programming jobs that are probably filled by someone with a degree. What is that person to do? Go back to a community college like Bush suggests? Do these people have any idea what it would be like for those of us in our 30s, 40s, or 50s who would have to go back to school and start at the bottom again? Assuming there are even positions other than Walmart greeter that would be available.
This gov't is making a critcal mistake in equating software jobs with manufacturing jobs. A manufacturing job requires little training and provides no ladder to climb. A software job requires massive training (by comparison) and provides the worker with a background that lets them eventually lead the industry.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
http://www.ashladle.org/archives/000320.html P
Chris Williams clw7500nc@gmail.com
I remember in 1998 and 1999 when programmers (and not necessarily even good ones), were being paid $100+/hr to do Y2k work, and then $100+/hr in 2000 to fix the stuff they broke in 1998 and 1999. Obviously, prices like that are not sustainable in the free market It helps (programmers) that in the US that many kids think studying math and science is lame. But there are many other countries where this isn't the case. I have had some very well paying software jobs. However, instead of buying a bigger house, getting Saab payments, and living the high life, I bought cars with cash, kept the small house, got out of debt (except a small mortgage), and built up some cash reserves. In July I was laid off. In September I took a part time programming position with a 40% pay cut (same rate, but working 3 days/week). I'm still cash positive, and with the relatively low expenses I have, it is a nice life. I even came out ahead in my cash reserves with the severance they gave me. I'm just glad I don't own a $700,000 house in silicon valley, the ones that are 1000 square feet on 1/10th acre. Guess that's always fixed with bankruptcy.
Moral of the story: no, offshoring doesn't always bring all the beneifts that it is supposed to.
What kills me is that Bush and the US government is okay with this. So what happens when all the software created for US companies and the government is made by chinese programmers. And/or future terrorists.
Not very secure!!
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
If your customer base is global, then so will be your development team. If your customers are localised, then it's sensible to have your coders near to them.
In 10 years, India will be full of very experienced managers, architects, and analysts. In the US though, most of those jobs will be gone much like the junior positions are leaving now.
Parent is very insightful, but the senior positions won't move, unless entire projects are moved overseas. At that point why not just license someone else's code? They will just have a lot of trouble trying to fill them with people who have a resume that meets the requirement that they are looking for. Eccccccenomikz says that at that point, either HR will have to lower expectations (less bang for the buck from their point of view) or Pay more to get the top talent (Scarcity of resource drives price up). Either way it's a long term negative for businuess in the USA, because of their short sighted goals. Which is really rather typical of the American businuess perspective.
(Eventually, Japan might just buy the entire world, because they have long term goals and are patient about achieving them.)
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Their programmers, if anything like ours, are the ones completely immune to that country's terrible AIDS epidemic. The whole coutry could be left with nothing more than a bunch of programmers in a few decades!
So I'll be an anonymous coward with this post ;p
Not only is offshoring a threat to American programming jobs.. but open source software development is as well. Not open source in particular, but the fact that most OSS projects are distributed for free (beer).
Just as many consider it foolhardy to compete in a market where Microsoft has a product.. I consider it equally foolhardy to do so when there is a free OSS project that serves the same function.
And it is safe, as the responsible one will be promoted by the time the cost wave hits back.
That's very true, but in the long term the business that relies on this inefficent means of producing software for itself will be eaten alive by a competitor that counts pennis and opts not to take the wasteful steps in the first place.
Our company got out of offshoring PDQ (within a year) because they have very tight reigns on use of money and can't afford years of expensive exploration that leads nowhere. It also did lead to the ejection of some upper level people (thought it was other factors besides just offshoring that did that).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't think so. I used to contribute to FOSS but that was when I had a day job. I'll still help out in the technical newsgroups the occasional hapless Indian programmer who's managed to land a job that's way over his head, but that's only because the irony of the situation amuses me.
There are currently 3 low level rebellions going on in India. They have been at war with Pakistan (4 times?) over a number of years. Pakistan now has nukes and from the sounds of it aren't afraid to use them and have missiles that will hit anywhere inside of India. So the question is... What are companies going to do when their whole software project/support group go poof in a cloud of dust due to either a nuke or a terrorist attack? There is a reason it's cheap. It's partly due to the risk.
Washingtonpost has an article on the Industry vs. American workers squaring off on this issue. and an article on outsourcing.
BTW, Harriss Miller and the ITAA are the ENEMY on this issue and the IEEE is the good guy. Check out IEEE Legislative action center to help us take action on these issues.
All of the reporting was nothing more than a bluff? What if software engineers simply organized, unionized, and managed to double or triple their salaries in a matter of years? Perhaps the reason the media is doing all of this reporting on jobs going overseas is nothing more than a way of scaring the living daylights out of programmers, so that they don't dare ask for the true value of their work. It seems to me that everytime the perception of worker insecurity is created, that salaries would go down, since workers would be less inclined to ask for more. However, I'm doing a job search right now, and I don't get the feeling that employers here in the US are having any easier of a time finding the right kind of employee than they were a couple of years ago. What if all this reporting was nothing more than a scam? a bit of psychological warfare on those expensive programmers? Then again, I'm probably just being a bit paranoid...
More accurately, it's probably a combination of the two. The first part of free trade is essentially to replace programmers with less expensive programmers overseas. The second part is to use this stick to keep the remaining, more talented US programmers that are still left, in line. So, I think that part of this reporting could be a psychological bluff that is used on the more talented programmers. i.e. "You'd better not ask for too much, or you'll be delivering pizzas." The only reason I'm bringing this up, is because all of the reporting on offshoring seems out of character for US mainstream media, which usually is content to not say a word when things such as this are going on.
Job Title: Computer Programmers
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Job Description: Full-time position as a Programmer/Shop Technician. Experienced with VB and Web Design, preferably
Minimum Experience: 0 months
Hours Per Week: 40
Duration: F/T over 150 days
Salary: $8.00 Hr.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Nice "sig".
Try adjusting the carter numbers for inflation.
Debating (healthily) is okay, but spreading FUD is not.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I am studying to go into programming, so I am not yet in the field. However the way I see it the drone programming jobs are the ones really going over seas, there is a lot of drone work in programming, (Make this meathod here or that function there and just really simple stuff that gets delegated to the lowest member in the higherarchy. Quite frankly I think that job is worth what is being paid in india, getting even $20 an hour for it hear seems a bit extream to me, you write a small function with some code any one with a grasp of syntax can write. However the important jobs, the programming of the majior logic of new and unique programs cannot be sent to india, you would not get what you want, primarily because everyone over there will be used to the drone work, but also because a lot of this kind of work requires you be here were it is needed. there is a difference between using a language and programming, I know plenty of people that can write a program to specific parameter outlines, but when it comes to developing something or making something unique, or God forbid the ultimate taboo of needing to figure something out instead of using a set of parameters (a function that takes this and returns this) So I think all the people in it for money instead of a genuine love for and understanding of programming will loose there jobs, and I say good damn it, then the people who have intellignece enough for inovation can get the recognition they deserve and programming will not simply be seen as this drone work that I put on level with janitorial service. this is all IMHO of cource :-P
Are you serious about auto jobs? Have you seen Detroit or Flint Michigan? Auto jobs, by and large, ARE gone! Sure, there are a few plants left, but by and large, the auto industry is GONE. Jesus, watch "Roger and Me", and you'll see the desolation and poverty left when all of the auto jobs left this country. You must be living in a different US than I do, because by and large, the auto jobs are gone... just like steel, textiles, etc.
I don't respond to AC's.
I'm going to post this as an AC. I'll admit my bias is American.
The reason for India's IT surge is it's large population. Sure it's large and skilled, but first and foremost it's a LARGE population.
History shows us that overpopulation leads to war as people (and their beliefs and agendas) start to trip over each other in the quest for resources. It doesn't help that India is of a dominant religious system (Hindu) which is at odds with another large population surrounding it (Muslim).
What will be the effect on the IT world if India and it's Muslim neighbors go to war with each other? Particularly with Pakistan over Kashmir? It's no secret that Al-Qaeda has tried to assasinate Gen Musharaff who has been fairly reasonable in his dealings with India.
The average wage for an American programmer runs about $60,000, says John Bauman, who set up the Organization for the Rights of American Workers. Employers pay H-1Bs an average $53,000.
A programmer, Mr. Bauman was out of work for 20 months before finally taking a job with a 40% pay cut. His experience is common enough that programmers are organizing to fight in Congress against H-1B and L-1 visas.You're confusing average with a specifice case. You're also confusing fuzzy math with fuzzy logic.
So at least my being here does not lower the average salary.
When jobs are replaced by foreign H1-B holders in most cases that means that there are not enough US citizens qualified for the job. Sure, cut the numbers of H1-B... All that it will lead to is that the job not getting done, at least not within the US.
Maybe at some point - in a generation or so, people will realize that investing money in education is more important than financing an apparently ineffective military apparatus!
BUSINESS VISA: Valid for six months and one year with multiple entries. A letter from Sponsoring Organization indicating the nature of applicant's business, probable duration of stay, places and organizations to be visited incorporating therein a guarantee to meet maintenance expenses, etc. may accompany the application. Ten-year Business visas are available to U.S passport holders. A business letter from India or US may accompany the application.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Some software companies or IT shops might have a highly compartmentalized (stratified?) software development process with senior people doing mainly design work and junior people writing the actual code and doing little else, but that really hasn't been the case in most the places I've worked during my career.
The beginning programming jobs I've been exposed to over the years have *not* been just "coding" positions -- writing code is only one of the tasks involved in the job. The person also has to do a number of other things, often including the initial requirements gathering and various follow-up tasks with the end users or customers, creating the interface/program/database design, doing the actual coding itself, writing or updating any technical documentation which might exist, doing formal unit testing before acceptance testing, doing regression testing if required, and finally providing the actual support to the customer after the code is loaded into production.
That was the case for me when I first came out of school (I was effectively put in charge of a particular set of programs and had to do it all), and it's still the case in my current place of employment.
Maybe some companies can actually afford to have dedicated design people who don't actually write the code themselves, but I guess the places I worked didn't have the resources required to have that type of functional separation. The one or two experts in each area had to do it all, since there wasn't anyone else who know each area well enough to produce an effective design.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
This is USA Today we are taking about, not a credible news source. People read this thing for the color photos and sports section.
Simply because an Indian programmer gets a job doesn't mean an American programmer is losing one. The more trade there is back and forth the more jobs there are to go around.
Besides, the higher the demand for an Indian programmer the higher the cost will go to hire them (supply and demand, remember?). There will come a point where demand for American programmers is stable -- and that will tend to be the best programmers in India, American, and whatever other country, not just every good, bad, and mediocre programmer in a single country.
Didn't Bush tell us to go to a community college and educate ourselves so we can get higher paying jobs?
Well, he's right. Being a plumber or electrician (if you can find those jobs) do pay a hell of a lot more than unemployment does. And, since he decided not to extend unemployment benefits, for many people, a skilled trade does pay more than $0 income. Way to go, Bush! That's some smart thinking!
Of course, you still have to beg, borrow, or steal the money to pay for community college, and if you're lucky enough to have a minimum wage job, you still have to take time off from work to go to class. He might as well suggested that the entire US signs up to take correspondence courses in taxidermy that are shown on TV.
I don't respond to AC's.
Nothing of the sort will happen, and if it does it will have nothing to do with offsourcing or work visa programs.
In fact experts predict a severe labor shortage within the next decade primarily because the baby boom generation is about to start retiring. Another contributing fact is that US colleges are turning up less comp.sci (and related) graduates than before.
I'm also going to argue that a fair share of the now unemployed "software professionals" working during the bubble years are not software professionals at all, but opportunists, who wanted to cash in on the next Big Thing while having practically no skills to do so. I certainly had the "pleasure" of working with many of them. I didn't enjoy babysitting them. It's GOOD that these people no longer do software work.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
I can't help but see unfairness here. CEO/CIO think IT budgets are large, so lets do something about it. How much they fudge the numbers to make it look like its working is another issue. Bugs me we don't think about lawyers and accountants as well! Or even CEO/CIO's. Too much power in the hands of too few ... jobs should be the #1 thing of companies. Nothing makes people happier (past health) than work.
It's human nature to respond to put the best possible light on a negative situation that doesn't appear to be changeable.
This may be somewhat OT, but I think it's a good example of this cognitive dissonance phenomenon: I am a social conservative (strongly support the right of an armed citizenry, believe abortion should be illegal during all 9 months, for example) who is not voting for either the Republican or Democrat presidential candidate. I simply can't see myself voting for someone who has proven himself as incompetent as Bush has, even though I actually agree with him on most of the issues I find important. (The Iraq war and the environment are exceptions.) I found it at turns amusing and exasperating so see how my conservative friends tried to defend Bush's "puzzled chimp" performance in the first debate: "It was 9PM Eastern time, and that's late at night for him," "I don't think he did that bad," "He's a plain-spoken man," etc. Imagine their reaction if things had been switched and Kerry had performed that dismally. There would have been a lot of gloating and pointing out that his fate was sealed.
Now, back onto the topic: Good luck with your theory that only programming grunt work is going to be offshored. Yeah, that's what we said about manufacturing some years back, maintaining that the real "brain work" will stay in the U.S. Not a chance.
Just take a look at what Google says about the topic. I found one of the first hits, "Offshore Outsourcing World" to be particularly interesting, and chilling. Ironically, the article talks about google itself.
I actually don't see any alternative to free trade, and firmly believe that capitalism is the only way to go (conservative there, again). But with the last barriers to global competition rapidly coming down, a re-distribution of wealth is in progress on a global scale. That means painful adjustments for those who have gotten used to having more of it than most of the world's people.
I am a registered patent agent, licensed to practice law in patent matters before the U.S Patent & Trademark Office. To get to where I'm now at, I've had to get a four-year technological degree, pass a really tough exam, and learn how to write by working under some experienced patent attorneys for that past five years or so. (Self-promotional but generally informative info here.)
So, does that mean my career is safe? See for yourself.
Build kickass open-source software to meet the needs. Basically, it would be saying, "If I can't have the job, you can't either." If India steals your job, make the job evaporate out from under them. See? With open source, everybody wins!
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
What do my fellow code-dinosaurs plan to do before the asteroid hits?
The asteriod has already hit and this is the nuclear winter...
If I had created the world I wouldn't have messed about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers
Division of labor is the very foundation of modern economics. What happens with free trade is that people do the jobs they're good at, other people do the jobs they're good at, and they trade.
When labor goes to India, that means Indians get richer and start buying goods. Some of those goods will be produced in America. As another example, since NAFTA passed Mexico is now outsourcing labor to China and (gasp...) South Texas because skilled Mexicans have gotten too rich to be hired for such jobs.
Economics is not a zero sum game and there is no giant sucking sound that can take all of our jobs and leave us unable to buy stuff. Just ask the people along the "American Autobahn" in the South who work in any of the many high-paying jobs that have been insourced to this country. If free trade were absolute and everywhere, we'd all be much richer - and the best educated and most productive of us, i.e. Westerners, would be richest.
Conversely, a simple thought experiment will tell you the ultimate booster to employment - ban all trade! Everyone would have to make his own clothes, catch his own food -100% employment all the time! Utopia! Sadly, most people would starve and the rest would be unable to maintain any standard of living, but, whatever yo.
Yes, this sucks for the workers who are displaced. The invention of the car sucked for buggy whip manufacteres too. I'm all for assisting these people with reeducation, but I'm not for holding everyone's standard of living back so we can save a few jobs.
It's not so bad, huh? Making bucks, getting exercise, working outside.
Fuckin' A
Having started a small company with several other code-dinosaurs a couple years back, I don't necessarily know that this is a Bad Thing. While some massive software companies will certainly come and go (and outsource) to maintain massive software systems, there are at least a million distinct niche markets out there that are perfect for smaller companies. We've found two of them -- the guys down the street have a couple, etc...
We can charge less than the large companies with massive overhead. Our developers make MORE, on the whole, than developers (especially entry-level ones) at large enterprise corporations, the perks are better, the atmosphere is better. About the only thing we don't have is massive R&D budgets that allow us to go scorched-earth on a thousand different projects at once. But, when everyone sits down and finds a couple of projects we want to pursue, we've never found ourselves short of funds to pursue them.
It's like all other business -- the pendulum swings from small enterprise, to huge corporations. Eventually little "boutique" companies pop up to compete with the giants on quality and cost, the giants consolidate and/or fold, and the cycle starts anew...
Every developer I've ever talked to always has some story about: "I had this great idea, and if only I had like 4 people to work on it, we could crank this thing out and make millions!!!" Unfortunately, 3 out of 4 such stories turn out to be completely wrong, but if folks weren't so generally afraid of failure, and found other like-minded folks to start up their own small business, sooner or later they'd hit that 1 of 4 that succeeds. (Even a blind squirrel finds that occasional nut...)
It's amusing how many OSS-touting, Linux-loving code geeks out there talk-the-talk, and yet scream about the sky falling every time a huge multi-national employer starts another round of outsourcing. Find some friends, harness that creativity, and do it yourself! It can and does work, everyday.
Outsourcing is NOT all bad. It's largely bad, but people just need to learn to identify opportunities when they come knocking. I make more money now, and am far happier, than I ever was working for a giganto-corp.
Notice: Your mouse has been moved. Windows will now restart so this change can take effect.
Eventually the third world professionals will demand the pay they deserve while US wages will come inline with what is happening around the world. An honest days work for an honest days wage. That is what I see in the future.
Do you work in the Industry? I have been a Software Engineer working in telecom for the last 10 years.
We are doing a lot of outsourcing to India and China and there are a lot of unemployed former engineers around now.
The situation is no different from the USA IMO.
The security clearance item also points to the fact that many government jobs or government contractor jobs require US citizenship. Those jobs will never be shipped overseas.
You won't get rich working for the government but you won't get tossed in the trash as easily as in private business.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Detroit and Flint got leveled by job losses in the auto sector, but overall in the USA, that has been offset by Japanese companies building auto plants in places like Mississippi and other places.
It still sucks if you live in Flint, no doubt about it, but it is inaccurate to say that auto jobs have disappeared in the USA overall.
I'm going to get a job at Chotchkie's!
You do the math. Muhahah. Most of the things that need to be said have been said. So here's the thing to ponder: Are people significantly worse off here in the US because the cheap plastic Wal-Mart type stuff gets made almost solely in China? Not the say that the Chinese are not making very good quality other stuff too..
He did say that, and I have just one question for the President:
Exactly what should I get training in? I understand I need to retool....but retool for what?
I've never heard an answer to that one.
Americans work more hours than any other country in the world. Maybe if we start outsourcing more jobs we can have just as much vacation time as the Europeans. Yay!
Oh, that's funny! I just about shot coke out my nose on that one! What, a vote for Bush is to say that his spending policies and government growth stance is right! In terms of spending and big govment, he's got to be the best Democratic President we've ever had.
Keep in mind that there is quite a bit of software written for the government that can't be exported. Military and other systems are kept here for specific reasons - like security.
With that said, for commercial software, what I think you will see is the large software shops move out, but the small shops will continue to exist. Response to customers needs drives many things, and if you need to be next to the customer when you make the software, you really can't ship it out.
Software engineers going away? I don't think so. Big developement efforts, probably.
My sig left me for a younger user id.
...for those who want to make a lot of money, but can't do anything else (for whatever reason).
I know at least 3 very talented programmers who are now selling real estate in Los Angeles. These are guys with advanced degrees from good schools like Caltech, 15+ years of experience, and resumes to drool over. But after a couple of years of unemployment/underemployment, they put on their gold Century 21 jackets, to go shoulder to shoulder with housewives from the Valley, selling residential real estate.
What a fucking waste of talent.
To rebutt: In general 1. Companies do not offshore mainframe jobs. 2. Companies do not offshore critical number crunching projects. 3. The federal government does not let jobs be offshored and most h1b's don't get required clearance. On the other hand PC software companies can offshore all they want beacuse people are used to substandard software on PC's. There have been some great games produced overseas.
There's one small detail that I haven't seen addressed yet, and that is the political instability in that region. There have already been 3 major Pakistan v India conflicts in the last century. It also seems that Pakistan has "the Bomb", you know, the nucular one. How many U.S. companies have considered the fallout (no pun intended) of an escalation in political tensions in the area? It wouldn't take more than one nuke going off in LEO, and you could kiss every computer, router, phone switch, and cell-phone in India good-bye. With only a handful of programmers left in the U.S. just think of the hourly billables!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was at a business training session the other day, and we watched the video version of "Who Moved My Cheese?" The essence of the story is this: the world is changing. GET USED TO IT OR SUFFER. (Although the message is delivered a little more gently than that, with cartoon characters and talking mice.)
I think there is a lot of truth to this. The notion that there was a time when you could happily work at a job for life is a LIE. There were depressions, wars, strikes, horrible labor conditions, racial tensions, etc... If you are comfortable, you are ignorant. Be prepared for change.
I'm curious as the actual cost of outsourcing.
I did some consulting for a large, software-focused company that has been trying some outsourcing. The have a standard company measure for units of functionality, and tried sending some projects to Indian programmers and measuring the cost. All things accounted for, the cost per unit was about 50% lower, not the radical 80-90% off that you hear.
But that didn't mean that they were going to do a lot of outsourcing. For the core parts of their software, they wanted in-house people to work on it; it's too risky putting the crown jewels in the hands of hired mercenaries. And the barriers to communication were large enough that many kinds of projects couldn't really be sent, because transferring the appropriate knowledge is too hard.
I admit that it has been a while since I have worked in the "pure" or "mainstream" IT market, but there seems to be a new class of pseudo-IT markets brewing in the disguise of more traditional technical trades.
I have noticed that in-house IT is being performed by IT "Enabled" Professionals. Employees who are hired to work in a core-business technical area, but also has rudimentary administration skills to cover the day-to-day IT needs.
It would not surprise me that the lower-grade programming and service-support positions are being transformed to "non-IT" employees. This also leads to a growth in the need for self-employed work to perform higher-level maintenance.
--Kei
A report on Newsforge (which is part of OSTG along with Slashdot) shows the flip side of the coin.
Actually, this report shows that the IT jobs in INDIA are increasing, not the IT jobs in the USA. Because the jobs are increasing in India does not mean that the jobs are (or are going to) increasing in the USA. In fact, it's quite probable the opposite will happen.
I'm surprised nobody seems to have made this comment.
What about open source programmers? They often work unpaid these days, and I can only assume this will continue for years to come. Open source is still a rising power, and will make it harder and harder to make money off producing commodity software.
Then there is specialized software. This is where the real money is. It's also often undesirable to have specialized software made offshore. I don't think programmers working in this line will be extinct anytime soon.
Finally, lots of US programmers will be replaced by foreign programmers. This is simple market economy at work: if you could get a product for much less, would you not do so? It's not like the jobs disappear, it's just that poor countries get them instead of rich ones.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
"I remember in 1998 and 1999 when programmers (and not necessarily even good ones), were being paid $100+/hr to do Y2k work, and then $100+/hr in 2000 to fix the stuff they broke in 1998 and 1999. "
Red herring. Do you complain when the plumbing breaks, floods the basement, and you have to have the plumber make an emergency trip, charging you an arm and a leg?
Y2K is that "emergency trip". If everyone had acknowledged the problem as soon as possible, and tended to it? Then the costs overall (including labour) would have been more reasonable.
That's not going to encourage companies to send work overseas!
Well, the article is a little misleading.
It's probably true that over time fewer employees in the US will call themselves developers/programmers. If tech support can be handled in other countries, it will be.
However, in-house sysadmin jobs aren't going overseas, and the marketing/training/consulting jobs probably aren't disappearing here (esp if it involves lots of face-to-face contact).
People won't be hired to write programs; they will be hired to find solutions and to adapt commercial/open source solutions to a company's needs. To do this, programming skills will probably be helpful. But it will exist as a secondary skill (helpful but not necessary).
Compare this to my own situation. Every business book says how important writing/communication skills are for business. Does that mean I (a talented writer) will never have problems finding work as a writer? No (although I currently work as a tech writer).
You see, accountants, marketing reps, even engineers benefit from excellent writing skills. But it is not the primary skill they are being hired for. Similarly, techies won't be hired solely for programming skills. However, it will be viewed as a desirable secondary skill for the resume.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
I've said it once before, probably more. If you love being a programmer, then follow your work to another country. It may be culture shock for a while, but you'll get used to it. I'm an American in the Czech Republic. Their are endless job opportunities here. As a recent graduate, I spent two years without work, but the job postings aren't dry here like in the US. Anyone willing to experience the Czech Republic contact me.... we have plenty of jobs here.
When I tell an object to delete this, am I killing it or telling it to kill me?
I started working for a mostly chinese startup on a visa and was always paid at least the "prevailing wage" however the government defined it. Later the startup was bought by a big company and the lawyer said the prevailing wage has increased and they need to give me a raise - no problem. Later I got raises on my own merit and ended up payed higher than any of my american coworkers. All of the time I was buying stuff in Fry's, spending money on travel, eating good food and so on.
I don't see how I was preventing an American from getting a programming job, as they could get the same skill as me, work for the same salary as me and have a higher standard of living than most other american jobs at that time. As far as I know, most of decent programmers did. Yes, some tiny companies underpayed H1 workers, but they never amounted to even 1% of total job market or software revenues.
With all the outrage about immigrants in Y2K, I don't understand how people are sitting on their hands now and not getting ready to tell Bush what they think about outsourcing in a few weeks.
I'm sorry I thought you said Endangered Feces. Whoo! That's a load off my mind... er ... uh ... wrong end.
Holmes: I warn you, sir, I've killed as many as six men in a week. Eight if you count matinees.
Holmes: How can I be expected to maintain the character when you belittle me in front of those hooligans?
Watson: Character? Are we talking about the same man who once declared with total conviction that the late Colonel Howard had been bludgeoned to death with a blunt *excrement*?
Holmes: Is it my fault you have such poor handwriting?
Without a Clue
But I've never been anyplace where the programmers weren't also the computer scientists and the software engineers.
I've never seen a room-full of drooling programmers whose job was to fill in the blanks after the software engineers spec'd it all out for them.
Maybe I've just never encountered what you call a 'programmer', but in my experience they're all one and the same. I participate in design meetings. I design the code. I write my sections. Of what value would someone be whose sole job is to type in what's already been defined for them?
What kind of environment are you guys working in that there's this lower-class of programmers who don't know anything about developing algorithms and designing?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"The situation is no different from the USA IMO."
I would tend to disagree. We are getting a lot of outsourcing work here in Canada, including our Toronto office. There are a lot of different situations of course. Differet firms have different experiences. I have seen some stuff go to India but there it seems to be work we don't have the capacity for. And the folks in India are not doing as good a job as the Canadians here.
I remember seeing some stats from Wired magazine that show Canada is the second highest destination of outsourcing work from the US. There was a huge margin between India and Canada, however we were 2nd.
As for housing prices in Toronto, they are not that bad compared to Vancouver. There has been a recent dip in the market. If your a country bumpkin they seem espensive.
let me be the first to tell your company exec's ...
DUH.
where was their heads 3 years ago when they jumped on the trendy "outsource" bandwagon?
I dared them to outsource me many times... because I knew that the projects that I maintain and create would die a miserable flaming death if the programmers were not sitting right here and understood the core business..
you think RAJNI understands the different between open, target, directed-target, ob/bd, and key-active mean in account status? you can tell him basics, but there are a myriad of rules and understanding that comes only with working in that business that allows you to set up the exceptions so that status is properly selected.
we had one app written 2 years ago in india..
I took the sourcecode and put it in a paper shredder and started over from the beginning writing it myself because the code was useless and impossible to maintain. what the hell does Lagaan mean? or Ahsaas?
yet words like this peppered the sourcecode in variables and other places.
we spend $125,000.00 for them to create that app. over 1 year.. and unheard of turnaround. and we got a useless and unmaintainable mess back.
did it work? yes. it worked EXACTLY how they specified it.
and we outgrew that in 20 days as limitations that sales did not think about were found and modifications were requested.
it might as well have been a closed source app.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
A business that outsources core competencies is headed in the wrong direction. I happen to work for a company that has experimented with outsourcing (both inside the US and offshore), and the process works for some software efforts, but certainly not for the core businesses and domain-specific developments.
If a company outsources its core businesses, it effectively reduces itself to a distributer.
The same thing is happening to hardware engineers, at an almost-as-astonishing rate. The president of my company says that India and China have more higher-quality engineers, so it is only natural to prefer to do the work overseas.
Go visit Lafayette Indiana and see the Suburu plant there.
"It is sad, but I think the US will cease to be a superpower in an economic and academic sense in the next few decades. "
Maybe we can draw a parallel between Microsoft and the US?
They can't outsource classified work to other countries. You really don't have to worry about job security in this country if you have a DoD security clearence. If you live in the Washington D.C. area and have an active security clearence, there are currently 1000s of open software engineering jobs. While this could change if the political climate changes, for now you are good.
Now admittedly, this is based only on infromal observational evidence and personal anecdotes (the least valid form of evidence), however I've never seen anything better than that from the "We're doomed" folks. So:
What I've observed is that there were waaaaay too many people who got into tech for the money only. They saw it as a quick easy way to get rich. So they crammed to get a degree or soem certs, without ever really understanding the material, and came out and did shitty work for high pay. Then the crunch came and these people got laid off (and inevatibly some good people with them). However rather than just enjoying the ride, they figure they are now worth that much and that they should be able to get tech work with sub par skills.
Everyone I know that does tech hiring says that ya, there is NO shortage of applicatns, they virtually get flodded. However there is a HUGE shortage of qualified apps. They get tons of applicatns who have a bunch of facts memorized, but no real deeper understanding to allow them to synthesize and apply that to real world problems. Well that's just not that useful in IT/Software. They are applied fields, not really theoritical fields (at least most of the jobs). You get paid to problem solve and apply knowledge, not be a repository of unconnected facts.
I believe this is primarily where the job shortage comes from. People that lack higher level skills, yet feel they deserve a lot of pay for that. There still seems to be a great demand for talented workers, one which offshoring has NOT filled.
The key to keeping a job is to get off the well worn path of C/Java/Perl/Python and develop specialized skills that won't be so easily duplicated by the programmer factories. Learn to use high performance Common Lisp systems for example.
(see http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html for a Lisp case study).
2) Get nursing job that pays $50K/year + benefits + $10K signing bonus (Yup, I've seen them.)
3) Profit!!! (And increase your risk of getting communicable diseases, deal with other people's illnesses, poke people with needles, and deal with all the idiotic adults and screaming children the general public can throw at you.)
As you can see, Bush's plan is foolproof. There's not even a ??? step!
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
Bangalore doesn't seem to even have a reliable phone network yet,
The offshoring centres in Bangalore have a direct satellite link to the international telephone network, and backup power generators in the basement. They organise their own shuttle services to and from the residential areas to their offices. They can't really be any more self-sufficient.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
You guys believe what you read in USA Today? They pick up on last year's paranoid delusions, google for some statistics to back it up, and call it news.
They could just have easily produced an article arguing the complete opposite (i.e. "Outsourcing is last year's management fad") with just as believable statistics; but they're probably saving that for next year.
need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
There will always be a need for domestic programmers, at least for defense contracts.
As far as the attrition of programmers go, it is very understandable. Programming isn't particularly rewarding in most workplaces. Also, that recent article about IT management being among the worst jobs is important, as unhappy or ineffective managers do rub off on their staff. Further, many programmers simply are not good at their jobs.
Having worked as a programmer for over five years, I'm already burnt out and training myself for a career change. The politics, the people I had to work with, the lack of funding, the lack of understanding the complexity of software, all chisled away at me until I simply had to find something else to do for my sanity's sake.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
No, the Supreme Court ruled that US citizens could legally be prevented from leaving the "land of the free" and prosecuted for attempting to do so.
Most of them don't have passports anyway, and the government reserves the right to stop issuing them. So they'd have to stow away on transport ships or something like other people escaping oppressive regimes.
Remember: The US was founded by a bunch of lunatics who refused to live in harmony with their neighbours and refused to pay their taxes. The stuff about freedom is, and always has been just as much propaganda as anything the Soviets put out.
Whether you believe that it's all a bluff, or that it's really a threat to your job today, the answer is that we need to organize. You can't run from offshoring. It's pervasive, and it eventually will enter into every possible field, yes, even management. No one is safe. Market forces are relentless, and eventually even many of the smug millionaire CEO's will see their jobs replaced.
Before someone starts telling me about comparative advantage, and "efficiency" and all that crap, just remember that corporations view no difference between cost cutting and cost shifting. If they can find a way to shift a cost onto the worker, or the consumer, then to them that's a gain in "efficiency". In fact, most often, that's exactly what they mean. "Efficiency" is when they find a way to make the workers pay for things that they used to pay for. For example, if they figure out a way to save on heating in the winter, and as a result the workers have to put up with freezing temperatures, that's "efficiency". Nevermind that the workers are miserable, it's more efficient since they save on electricity. If they buy the programmer a cheap chair and a crappy work bench, and he gets back problems and carpal tunnel, that's "efficiency", as long as they don't get sued, since they were able to save a couple of hundred bucks on the chair. Nevermind the cost to society, or the programmer. Or, if a factory figures out a discreet way of dumping toxic waste into a river, poisoning the water supply, and surrounding community, that's "efficiency", since they were able to cut costs and avoid the expensive process of refining that waste.
So, just because free trade results in more "efficiency", doesn't mean that it's the kind of efficiency that any of us would want. The reason the corporations always win out, and are almost always able to shift their costs onto the worker, rather than vice versa, is due to their size in comparison to the workers. As long as we allow multinationals to exist, they will always use their size in the bargaining process. The predictable result is that they will consistently win. This is why monopolies have such a destructive effect on markets. What ends up happening is that they are able to use their size to shift more and more of their costs onto the workers and consumers, and the relationship becomes parasitic.
> Miano sees such a dim future for programmers that
> he decided to enter law school. "I saw the
> handwriting on the wall," he says.
I'm not sure why he thinks legal service jobs are going to be any safer from outsourcing in the future.
I think there are few different trends in software development that interacting with each other.
I think the days of huge programmer shops in the US was always going to be over - but i don't see that as anything to be worried about.
I think there was always a move towards smaller but more skilled and experienced teams that can react quickly to changing markets. I think anyone who's been in industry for the last 10 years would have seen that happening. It's much harder now to get a programming job straight out of school now that it used to be. Companies are just not hiring inexperienced people anymore.
I suspect a lot the companies that are outsourcing development projects overlap a lot with the ones that used employ the 'mongolian hordes' technique here at home.
I think a lot of these companies just don't get that you don't large and expensive programmer teams to deliver value. Look at how Apple delivers better technology Microsfot with a fraction of the programming staff, They're leveraging what is already out there, but providing their own value on top.
Blah blah
Offshoring and outsourcing of coding and software development related tasks to some degree will be inevatible. It has happened with cars, furniture, electronics, heavy machinery, call centers, legal services, medical transcription, even some biotech, and more.
There are still jobs available in the US in all of those fields.
What all of those trends do foster could very well become a big problem for the US long term, however. First we exported manufacturing, then basic R&D, now it's becomming those pesky "non-core" business functions. Next all we will hold is a few key services and the management team.
The next thing to happen will be good people "over there" with quality education and business experience will start local companies to take advantage of all those quality local resources. Then the original (and globally unpopular American) companies get will shoved aside. There's quite a bit of precedence to back this up, and the management team and leadership of a company isn't really any harder to replace than any other part - period.
But hey - I like riding in handbaskets...
Im not from USA so i dont care. :P
I will jump of joy if i had a telejob and earn 300-1000 USD per month.
So if you lose your job its cos you want to earn more than me.
The average salary is 70 USD per month, so i could live like a king with 1000...
Whether this is true about American programming jobs or not is debateable, but putting all the emphasis on overseas workers seems rather misplaced to me. It's always the easy way to play on that fear of the other and its usually a misguided effort. I think the reality is that there was a huge rush to create software with the acceptance of the GUI that exaggerated the size of the long-term job market for programming skills.
This wasn't helped by corporations like Microsoft who blatantly hyped the potential economic returns of programming as a business. The only way their version of the development world worked was if everyone essentially joined into a pyramid scheme. And like any good pyramid scheme, only the guys on top got fat.
The fact is, although it looked like there was endless work to be done when the GUI desktop was a novel metaphor in people's lives, a few years later the work doesn't seem so endless. Much has been accomplished. Just look at how far FOSS has come in the last few years. It's not just impressive, it's astounding and to ignore that seems to take a bit of willfull ignornce. The fact is, the basic tools seem to have been done to death at this point.
So, at that stage you do have to ask yourself if it might not just be a fact that as software matures it simply doesn't require hundreds of thousands of individuals constantly creating new products day in and day out when the basic products aren't really changing much. It's not like a conventional physical manufacturing industry like autos where you need staff just to keep the product flowing even if the product isn't changing. Unlike conventional products, software is a product that continues to flow even when it is no longer being produced or even marketed.
Finally, you have to look at hardware. This should say something to you that a lot of programmers just don't want to face. When harware becomes so cheap it's like a disposable item then you simply cannot sustain the kind of software market that companies like Microsoft or Sun have assured developers will exist. If you believed the lies, well who's to blame? The evidence of reality is available at any consumer electronics store. The only dark, menacing conspiracy is the one that comes from within. If you wanted to believe something that couldn't be true and obviously wasn't, then is the best solution to blame "foreigners"? I think this is a seriously problematic response to a reality that is standing right before us quite plainly.
I deal with computers all day. When I go to a store, I really want human interaction otherwise I would order everything online...
Stores that only provide checkout machines, I do not shop at. While waiting in line (listening to people, talking to people, talking to the clerk, etc), managers will sometimes come by and demand that I use the checkout machine which I either refuse or leave.
Stores seem to miss the whole point of a value added experience. It is one thing to have a few available and another to try forcing people to use it. All the businesses I know of that switched to 100% automated checkout have gone bankrupt and shut down.
----------
In regards to outsource, why outsource to India when India is outsourcing to eastern Europe (like Hungary and Ukraine)? It is always easier to have someone right there, than relying on a company, which might be outsourcing to another company, which might be outsourcing to another company, which might be outsourcing to another company... get the point?
Fucky fuck you slashdot.
second society
"The problem with your approach is that damned near everyone's "backup plan" seems to be "get a teaching degree". "
Kind of like "get a programming job" was awhile back.
"That's only going to last so long, particularly when the gov't sees all the willing and able teachers, and decides that they can cut teachers' wages further."
Dot BOOM!
"Not only that, but not everyone can teach. I'm not talking about ability, I'm talking about simple economy balance. The way things are looking, we're going to have an economy nearly completely composed of business executives, teachers, food service workers, and store operators, while all the innovation is done elsewhere."
We have a deficit of "doing it for the love", and a surplus of "doing it for the money". Balance that, and the "we have a job for you", workers paradise will come back.
I thought H1-B holders couldn't be given a job for which a US citizen was available to do.
I was an analog circuit designer for 15 years. I designed industrial, telecom and consumer products; mostly electronic power conversion circuitry such as power supplies, DC-DC Converters, High Voltage Transformers and DC-AC Inverters. First the manufacturing was moved overseas. Then, the writing was on the wall. All the design work went overseas too. Once they started building the stuff, it wasn't long before they figured out how to clone and modify designs. Before long, they were able to design from scratch. Today, the majority of electronics manufacturing is done abroad. It's pretty much been like that for 10 years. I saw it coming and retrained myself to write software.
Now the programming jobs are going where the labor is cheap. I have no reason to expect any different outcome than I saw with electronics. Indeed, many "knowledge" jobs can be done abroad. China and India have vast pools of highly educated workers. Their cost of living is a fraction of ours so they can and will work for a fraction of what we make. In cases were the work can't be taken to the cheap labor, the cheap labor is brought to the work. Special visas and porous borders are providing US businesses with all the inexpensive labor they want.
When the electronics industry was in decline, I saw opportunity in software. However, as the software work dries up, I see no new promising areas emerging to take it's place.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
I'm going for my Ph.D in Art History... i can see the end clear as day for people that do what I do, especially as we get better at it and start automating some of the really complex stuff.
stuff |
That's what he tried to do in Iraq. The people there have stymied him somewhat by blowing stuff up and killing people.
Play Command HQ online
Bush is a big proponent of H-1B visas. With the huge number of un- or under- employeed American computer workers the H-1B visa program for computer workers should be drastically reduced.
mbbac
Is it really oursourcing or are you just bidding on contract work? North America is a pretty free trade zone. I am sure you could find someone in the USA getting CDN contracts as well.
With our dollar running at near 80% you don't save very much money by "outsourcing" to Canada.
I have personally experienced the wave of Indian contractors come in to learn and then go back to India with full time positions. Whille my company continues to downsize ( 70% gone and counting).
Working in India they get less than 50% of our wages. So this is real outsourcing IMO.
Frankly most outsourcing has a dismal track record at my company, the only reason they to do it is cost.
If you are saving next to no money (as in "outsourcing" to Canada) there is little reason to do it.
Bush said so. Never mind that you've already got a Masters degree or perhaps even a PhD. Community College is the ticket to your dreams!
"What so special about USA brains."
Easier to convince that GWB's the one to vote for come November.
What the article misses fundamentally:
The current terms of trade are held up by 0.5 Trillion dollar annual trade deficits financed by foreign borrowing-and immigration policies that are extremely predatory upon the US middle class. This is _not_ a free market but a decision make by highly centralized authorities.
There is a real question of what the software market will look like after the trade issue resolves itself-as it eventually will.
What ever happens to me, I am pretty sure it will be outside... Man I really could use a tan. This cube and indirect lighting is hell on my complexion...
Str8Dog
using System.Darkside; public
Does this mean we can't hunt them now?
This guy is way out there
I know this is a complete lie!! I saw on the just the other day that the Hot Jobs are still out there and when you dial the 1-800 number you can get a new career in any of the hot jobs out there today!! Among those jobs are IT specialist and Computer programmer and they say those jobs are in heavy demand.
(no, I'm not serious... I just hate those commercials so much I'm hoping legal action is applicable.)
BTW, will work for mod points...
Economics will eventually equilize things such as this. If outsourcing to a place such as India leads to higher standards of living, then prices go up, and so will salaries. After some period of time, the ecomics of outsourcing will be minimized due to diminished, comparative advantage. Just like any other sort of international trade situation, US companies will not seek overseas commerce if there is no economic advantage.
Ten people doing the job of one person with communication, transportation and time delays might cost less but it is not good economics. This current so called "trend" is about people making a quick buck by taking advantage of an artificial imbalance in currency exchange rates. Problem is that the value of the US dollar is being artificially inflated to support energy costs. This is not sustainable. So, no need to worry about jobs that are continuously going overseas. More to worry about greater economic instability as a result of politicians trying to artificially maintain economic stability.
Tools like Java have been around for too long to still be solely using them. The problem is that once someone learns to use Struts, they think that is all the reuse that is needed.
Programmers need to make themselves more efficient by agreeing to use tools like Open for Business (www.ofbiz.org). It is ridiculous to be still worrying about what database you are using or coding ugly JSPs or HTML screens directly.
In short, we need to organize and cooperate or we will flame ourselves out of work.
Programmers are typically well educated and mobile - they will go where the work is.
Hundreds of contract programmers are said to have left the UK to work abroad becuase of recent tax changes targeted at them. Right now in the UK I know of a number of _US_ programmers who have come here to work on major projects where apparently they can't find enough UK contractors. Probably (given it is a large multinational/US company) some of the work is also being outsourced from the UK back _in_ to the US.
Good thing I'm an German-American programmer!
second society
Yah, APU may be able to code some database program, but can he make something along the lines of DOOM? No, no he can't. :)
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
...these reserves will likely be set up in parents' basements all across the country. Scientists hope to attract the female of the species using colorful "tech" mating icons, such as Star Wars figurines and empty cans of Mountain Dew.
Scientists will track results by tagging individual males, usually by writing the subjects name in their underwear.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
This fallacy that US education is lackluster is the same garbage spouted by those who say we need H1-B visas. As someone who has managed people educated in the US and people educated in other countries - both H1-B holders and outsourced programmers, it is clear to me that not only are US-educated software engineers superior to those educated in places like India, but they also have a much easier time communicating, undertstanding, and getting the job done right. CEOs and the rest of management at many US companies simply look at the cost estimates for an employee or for a project, and decide that they need an "outsourcing strategy" and that is provides them a competitive advantage. Longer term, though, they suffer from a decrease in productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction. I can't wait for the first company to blame outsourcing for a product's late, buggy arrival.
I know I'm going to get flamed for this post, but my opinion is that this is all liberal propaganda.
There are plenty of jobs here and there are plenty of workers. I think if anything we're seeing the weak developers wiped out.
I interview a lot of people and it surprises me how many low skilled developers come in asking for $70,000. I don't care if you have 3 years of experience you don't ask for that much money unless you're going to be good enough to provide the company with enough output to bring in several times that much. There have even been some where I would have offered a job for half that maybe but usually if their head is so high in the sky I don't bother.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I for one am using my IT and business skills to start my own company. I'd rather trust myself for my future employment.
Also, I don't want to be a programmer in five years. I've coded enough since 1996 and I'm sick of it. Time to move on. Owning my own company is the logical route for myself. I've witnessed enough dot bomb companies from the inside to know how not to run a business.
As I start to hire the people I need, I will make sure to hire American Citizens in the U.S.A.
More of us IT people that have business skills should do the same. More small companies that hire local employees helps the economy faster and better than stopping a few large companies from sending jobs overseas.
Take control of your future and act!
The Federal Govt didn't decrease in size during Clinton's administrations unless you are only measuring the DoD. It still got bigger and more obtrusive. Any braking in spending was due to stubborn Congressional Republicans who didn't want to cooperate - a case were gridlock is good. If Clinton had his way, the health care industry would have been sucked into the bureaucracy and we would be bitching about the sucky performance just like vets bitch about VA hospital incompetence.
The hawks and the war mongers practically built today's computing, you know. The Internet was originally a military project. Computing has gotten an enormous boost by military research.
Turning Iraq and Afghanistan from brutal dictatorships to democracies - a change already made in Afghanistan and fast-coming in Iraq - strikes me as something that is very, very good for the long-term interests of the US, the world and the nations involved. And thanks to our sophistication, we did it with a remarkably low loss of life, both on our side and the Iraq's.
I would recommend that you check out Tommy Franks' book American Soldier. Get to know military people a little better. They're not devils; they are people doing the best they can at a very difficult job. And over seventy percent of them are supporting George W Bush for re-election, because they believe what they're doing is right. I'm not asking for you to agree with them, but you should check out their side and understand that they are not cardboard cutout people.
If you're looking for domestic entry level programming that's going to stay here, I'd say the military's not a bad place to start; outsourcing is prevented by security considerations.
And if your domestic improvements are various subsidies and added government fat, that will just ensure that we become less effective than ever.
We are victims of our own success. We've bloated our cost of living to the point where a typical programmer salary of $60,000 doesn't buy all that much. So if people outside the US are willing to work hard for $8k a year, and feel rich, with a comparable lifestyle to what we have here, I can't really blame anyone for wanting to move operations to India.
So how do we compete? I don't know, but I don't think cutting our military (which is only about 6% of GNP) is going to help. The root problem is our cost of living, and I have no idea how to lower it.
One thing that will happen is that Indian salaries are going to increase, but it will be a long time, if ever, before they reach parity with ours.
Thoughts?
D
PS For more on Iraq from an Iraqi perspective, I think this sums it up nicely. Please read it if you're a skeptic about the Iraq war or believe we've done a really bad thing by invading Iraq.
I work on projects that require US citizenship, top secret clearance, polygraphs. There's no way my job or our work will ever be outsourced.
BTW, we're hiring in the Ft Meade, MD area...cleared or uncleared. Unfortunately, business is booming and we're behind the hiring curve for the year.
There is another component to this. Quality. There have been a few projects we have outsourced to India from here. Those projects were poorly coded and setup in India causing lots of extra work here in the way of fixes and follow ups.
Once advantage Canada has over India is quality. We are still slightly cheaper, and the dollar works in our favour. Wages for programmers are generally less than our US counterparts as well.
If you could get a project done well and on time in Canada for X dollars, or in India with quality issues and delays for 1/8 of X dollars, what do you choose? There are times when you would prefer the job right the first time instead of paying more for fixes after, which could cost you 10 times more than you saved.
As a side note, I would not say India's programmers are crappy in general as you might gather from my above statements. Some of our stars here in the Toronto Office are from India and don't intend to move back. However the work we have outsourced was done quite poorly.
Best bet for an american? Heir, Heiress or Butler/Maid.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I spent 3+ years after exiting the service working a dead-end job. Finally got a few community courses under my belt and "bid" my way into a job in the career of my choice by asking for a low end salary.
After a few years I was where I felt I needed to be and have progressed further each year. There is work out there for those who want it, however too many overvalue themselves and thus lock themselves out of jobs.
The key is to get A job. From there it is a only a few years before your value should become evident to the people you work with. If that isn't happening either you aren't working to that perceived value or you are in the wrong place.
Blaming a President for your lack of job is about as brite as claiming one got you a job. The first rule of being successful in your career is to realize it is NOT YOUR JOB. It is your employers job and its in your damn best interest to prove you deserve to have it.
For those who hate that truth I am truly sorry as there is nothing I can do for you. You have to look at yourself and ask why you think you don't need to prove or earn your position in life. In the end you are accountable to yourself.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Bush said that instead of raising the minimum wage we should fix the education system. That was not an answer to the issue of higher paying jobs going over seas.
This is the kind of liberal distortion of the facts that I would expect from Dan Rather. Wait... Dan? Is that you?
Labor is just like anything else, a commodity.
No. Some labor is a commodity. Some is not.
"Commodity" means a mass-produced unspecialized product . Nice try.
Division of labor is the very foundation of modern economics.
You're editorializing. Labor specialization predates "modern economics" by 100s of millions of years. Again, nice try.
Mexicans have gotten too rich to be hired for such jobs.
Semi-skilled mexican factory drones are "too rich" for their jobs? Gee. That's a good argument for outsourcing more. Nice try.
Conversely, a simple thought experiment will tell you the ultimate booster to employment - ban all trade!.
Again, nice try. Few people advocate the abolishion of trade. However, let's face it: there are three economic models : 1) hunt and gather, 2) subsitence farming and 3) mercantilism.
You are involved in one of those three models. Most Americans are in group 3. Now our political and economic leadership are either doing a good job or a bad job. I think their doing a bad job. Bad immigration and bad trade policy are hurting America and American workers. In fact, when we had a strong immigration policy and stronger trade policy, we had higher growth, higher birthrate, higher labor mobility, breakdown of social barriers, less divorce, people were happier, there was less congestion, less prisoners, etc. We're not just saving the jobs of a few from unfair competiton from guest workers and indentured servants, we're saving the American way of life.
Nice try.
Isn't it time we all realize that outsourcing is mostly a buzzword? For sure it's a buzzword that cost people their jobs but what is new about that? "Synergies" anyone? (The buzzword which cost me my job). It's the same old PHB bullshit and costs the shareholders losses in the long term.
The PHB eagerness for outsourcing has already begun to bite their ass and the tide is slowly turning into a more balanced view of the real cost of outsourcing for the company. Companies with PHB's are grossly inefficient anyway and doomed in the end no matter what (just because it has "worked" for 50 years doesn't meant it will do so for 50 more).
Just another small bump in the development of the truly global economy. More and more people realize that the PHB's are the problem, as an alternative to PHB's look at the way SAS.com works http://www.sas.com/corporate/worklife/.
this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
US auto workers will all be replaced by robots...
1999 Numbers :
2000 Numbers :
2001 Numbers :
2002 Numbers :
2003 Numbers :
Difference, 1999-2003
Considering the tech burst, the generally faltering economy, outsourcing, the MPAA, and 9/11, it's pretty good. Especially if you aren't a programmer (incidentally, they average around 8-10k less a year than the software engineers, IIRC).
I'm not a wonk, I'm a geek, so please forgive if I have my numbers or sources wrong somehow.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
"Yes, this sucks for the workers who are displaced. The invention of the car sucked for buggy whip manufacteres too. I'm all for assisting these people with reeducation, but I'm not for holding everyone's standard of living back so we can save a few jobs."
So what's "buggy-whippish" about all the jobs that are going out the door?
And what makes you think it's a "few" that are losing their jobs?
And last, what makes you think it's just "labour" we're losing?
Well, I was thinking I would switch to blue collar work, but since US based manufacturing became extinct in the 60's and 70's, I guess that isn't an option. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to sound like Chicken Little.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
The communication is difficult. You have to double-document everything, even brief phone conversations. There's also the CYA activities necessary because of the contract.
The biggest hurdle is the lack of knowledge of our company and business. Sure, they have a center of excellence, but really, it takes years to get a good grasp on our business and way of doing things.
There are cultural issues too. Everyone I work with offshore are very nice. It's just hard to tell if you are getting a straight answer or not.
I believe that we could have done a better job on this project by having the whole team on-site. At least you have body-language to tell you when understanding is not happening.
www.mikesmind.com - www.daddyworkathome.com - www.freetofarm.org - www.tenfoottable.com
See their site Live Free Or Die, lfod.com.
If you feel strongly about mass immigration, mass outsourcing, and the total loss of USA's manufacturing and know-how (look at Detroit to see what happens... a once safe and beautiful city is now a delapidated warzone), then don't waste your vote on the free-traders. Cast a vote for the Constitution. Every vote they get will make a difference.
Also start reading VDARE.COM.
Tell everyone you know!
Actually, those plants were required by law. There had to be a certain amount of work done in the USA to qualify as a US product. All of those cars are sold in N.A. and they are simply final assembly, nothing more. The auto jobs have disappeared, but a big part of that is automation, not just offshoring.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Would you stop it about the H1Bs? They are *NOT* "stealing" your jobs! For an H1B to be hired, the company has to *prove* that the foreign worker is better qualified than local available workforce for the position they are being hired. And the salary level *must* be approved by the local dept. of labor. In fact, many companies avoid H1Bs like a plague because it takes too much effort to do the paperwork, and they have to wait 4-5 months before getting an approval.
No US company would hire an H1B if they could have an American doing that job. Especially considering that H1Bs are limited to 6 years.
I'm an H1B and I've been one for the past 6 years. I'm leaving to go to Canada in the spring because I'm coming up on my limit and can't continue working at my current job past July. I'm good at what I do, I have excellent English skills (and Russian, and now French), and I have good references. I have paid all my taxes (including Social Security, which I won't ever see back, since I don't qualify for it), and nearly everything I earned in the past 6 years went back into your economy.
Feel free to bitch about offshoring your jobs, since the money actually leaves your economy forever, but don't blame H1Bs if you lose your job. That's not how it works.
</rant>If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
Parent is very insightful, but the senior positions won't move, unless entire projects are moved overseas.
The project might not be moved, but, eventually, the Indian companies will start their own projects.
They will have the junior coders turned intermediate coders turned senior coders turned management.
There is nothing about the USofA that will protect the management jobs.
At that point why not just license someone else's code?
As in EULA, as in "import".
Eccccccenomikz says that at that point, either HR will have to lower expectations (less bang for the buck from their point of view) or Pay more to get the top talent (Scarcity of resource drives price up).
You left out the option where there isn't a US company anymore so there isn't an HR department and the entire software package is imported from India.
Either way it's a long term negative for businuess in the USA, because of their short sighted goals.
It's worse than that. It's a long term negative with a very big crash coming in about 10 years. That's how long it will take for all those new Indian programmers to learn enough to move into management and such.
How can a US company compete with an Indian company where EVERYONE makes 1/10th what the US company makes.
Eventually, all the "senior" programmers in the US will either have moved to a different field or be maintaining some single system for some single company until they die (or the new CIO gets a quote from an Indian company that will migrate that system for 1/10th what that programmer is being paid).
Who among us would cry if those sloppy MS, Sun morons weren't infecting their propritary platforms with bugs every day?
When you hire a busload of kiddies to code a mission critical app, you deserve what you get.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
From the article:
Funny, I was always taught that you most often get what you pay for.
That so many talented, skilled workers not take their future into their own hands? Especially when forced to do so by being laid off, etc.
It seems to me that if I were a victim of programmer off-shoring, yes, I would look for a job... but in the meantime I would work to build a coalition of my fellow unemployed talented, skilled works to build some new product, create some new consulting firm, or find some way to bring these talents to bear in the marketplace.
We're not talking about building cars here with a large initial investment in raw materials. Coders are incredibly well placed to take their destiny into their own hands.
Maybe it's social skills, or the independent nature of coders that prevent them from coalescing into groups of economically viable businesses... just so strange from my perspective that this doesn't happen more often.
I've learned to take reports like this with a rather large grain of salt. Sure there are some jobs moving overseas, but overall, the demand for new code seems to be increasing. There may be some temporary displacement as jobs are initially moved, but those people will be re-absorbed as new jobs are created. (At least, that's what I'm hoping for.)
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
umm, make that a soy burger.
If you think
Lagaan?
Taxes.
Glad I could help...
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
I absolutely agree. The death knell for programmers is only for those who have not specialized in an engineering, industrial or scientific field. I study mechatronic engineering and everyone I know in my peer group can program but none of them would call themselves "programmers". Hell, I can whip up some cognitive apps in LISP, make a GUI for it in C or create a PHP page to access a mysql database with a list of sensor information and I still would not call myself a "programmer".
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
a warmongering idiot running the country, a guy who'll spend us into the poorhouse if thats what it takes to keep the DOD and Homeland Security supplied with all those hightech, software intensive tools that insure our safety. A programming job that requires a security clearnce just doesn't get farmed out to Bangalore Binaries Ltd and non-citizens need not apply.
Oh...wait...my cubemate just asked me why I was suddenly typing so furiously...
Uh, never mind.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I'm working on getting a job in a DoD funded lab. US citizenship is a requirement of applicants as you need to get DoD security clearance. So unless we start offshoring our homeland security projects then my job would be secure from that.
SPAM
I agree with all the people posting that outsourcing doesn't work well and that programming will, by necessity, continue to be viable in the US. However, I think it's missing the point that what outsourcing is sensible exerts a downward pressure on programmer's salaries in the US.
I know that I don't work as a programmer anymore, even though I enjoyed the work greatly, because I was unable to feed my family and pay the mortgage on what I was making. Maybe I'm just a lousy coder, but I make twice as much as a presales engineer and get a lot more freedom with my time, to boot.
My own personal example left out of the equation (not everyone has what it takes to survive in sales), does anyone else see the salaries for programming jobs dropping into the toilet?
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
So, what you're saying is that we should stop outsourcing to save a few Americans their nice jobs and keep Indians poor? That's just cold.
Who said anything about keeping Indians poor? We should be helping them develop. But we shouldn't be sending our jobs over there.
On the whole, the world is better off without borders and barriers to trade.
But individuals are not the whole. The "whole" might be better, but the individuals will suffer.
Opening up trade is the best way to improve the world wide standard of living.
So, making lots of unemployed people in the US is good for the world? That's pretty pathetic.
How about we FIRST establish some baselines rather then just send our jobs away to the person who will do it the cheapest?
I bet there are some pedophiles who would pay you for the priviledge of providing child care to your little darlings. Yes, saving money and making other people happy is what it's all about.
For my part, I'd prefer standards of environmental and worker protection rather than saving $5 on a toaster.
I am afraid to read the responses! the /. crowd are usually such well spoken, rational folks. There is nothing nice to see here so I am going to move along.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Outsourcing will eventually give rise to a competitive software engineering industry in India that may well rival anything the United States has even dreamed of. They have so many more people that are willing to become to become technologically literate that it is scary to think of how backwards many Americans are that they require 2-3x the tech support costs as the typical Indian customer. Everyone here needs to be willing to learn.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Which is something worse than something with fangs.
I'd take something with fangs over that any day...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I graduated with a CS degree this year, but I decided a little of a year before that law school was the way to go instead.
Not surprisingly, the biggest challenge I had was convincing admissions that I actually wanted to be a lawyer, and wasn't just hiding from the job situation (especially in my field).
Anyway, I had been looking for a different field of work since about the middle of my junior year. I can do CS, but I tired of it. Friends of mine that I outperformed in school landed $55,000/yr jobs with defense contractors (in the midwest). I decided that I could either deal with it and work in a job I would hate the rest of my life, or work in a field where I can impact society and people's lives in a more direct way.
I chose the latter. I'm very glad that I did. Law school so far has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. (I have yet to decide what I want to specialize in, and it doesn't really matter until after the first year anyway.)
With all that said, my point is that just because you're currently specialized in a certain field, if you have a college education, chances are you're going to be very adaptable, and able to find something else to do. You're not the high specialized buggy mechanic that will never be able to learn how to be an auto mechanic, because he learned the trade as an apprentice and has no other education. If you learned a trade in college, and didn't learn how to learn, you missed out on the biggest part of your undergraduate education.
What?
Guys,
... the problem in software is not (and most likely never will be) that there aren't things to do, but rather that there are not enough people to do it. With help from India, China and wherever bigger things can be attempted. More amazing programs written.
For hundreds of years there's been talk of the disappearance of all jobs. Some new technology comes in, there's a period of adjusting as people move around to do something else, but then things turn out better than they were. Would you want to go back to before factories? Before tractors? These took the jobs from many people, but we're all better off as a result.
Next - how many of you have heard of an overstaffed software project? Right, not that many
And higher level jobs will always stay in the US. Why? Because this is where the money is. As long as management isn't planning on moving itself to India, they're going to want to keep higher level jobs here in the US, they are going to want their project leading engineers at arms reach, to be able to grab them and say "Hey, is this working now?" or "The customer wants the program to do foo as well, how long will it take, can we do it?".
I imagine that in the future these two items will lead to more software companies here in the US, with even smaller companies taking on larger projects through outsourcing. Or putting more effort into QA, and working out details and fixes which weren't cost effective to do before.
The software boom has barely started.
Didn't Bush tell us to go to a community college and educate ourselves so we can get higher paying jobs?
My response: Bush can go Cheney himself
Yet Another Web Site
One thing I feel that is lacking in some of the (other) 3rd world countries that is US seems to have an abundance of is creativity. Sure any indian programmer can program specifications, of course the main focus of these countries is sumed up by this (Math, math, more math, some logic, math). Just sprinkle with some programming compitence, and wala you have a (somewhat) trained programmer with compitence. The problem lay in the focus of the country, FYI much of programming has way way more to do with creativity than math, yes math does play some role, but the creativity behind the system is what is lacking. See *most* US programmers are NOT followers, most us programmers want to truly streach their creative bounds and come up with somthing original and innovative... I can't even COUNT how many indian programmers have asked me to help them with some *awsome* chat system. My god man, a new chat system; that idea has already been worked on so many times by so many people, get over it already, create somthing new, somthing exciting, somthing that will turn heads and make people say WOW that is cool. It is the drive for originality that makes the US what it is today, we are free to think as we please, with nearly no rules imposed on that thinking. Thus creating innovation, many places do not have that luxary. If anything that the US is DEFINATLY NOT LACKING, it is creativity, somthing other 3rd world countries ARE. When without creativity, your without good software. So stop worrying. One last thing, I would rather be a self made, (self employed) programmer doing innovative things, things that interest me, than work for some company that tells you what you HAVE to work on, how you HAVE to act. Not only that, at the end of the day who gets credit for your hard work? It surely is not you. Who is getting rich off YOUR innovations. Definatly not you. If your a CS college student in the USA, I got news for you guys your degree is not gonna cut it. So you better start working your duff off now (on your original idea) when you have REAL TIME, rather than wait till your outta school because they are right the JR. level positions are going fast, that doesn't mean that you cannot create a JR. level position for yourself (ie: your own project). All companies care about is experience, and proof of experience, they don't care where you get it from, they just want results, and what better result to give them than your own full software package as an example of your skill. Learn, adapt, and be agile. Just my 2 cents
Ambient [Servlet Based Webapp Engine]
More work for ME!!!!!
Depresingly, this has been a long time coming. I remember when I was in college in 1987 a CS professor was amazed at how year after year, fewer U.S. students were graduating in the field. What he couldn't understand is how a field that was obviously important to all industry - and becoming more important day after day - was not attractive to the average US student. So even back then, way pre-bubble, interest in CS was waning.
:-)
IMHO, the problem is threefold:
1) Math and "computers" are still seen as an interest of the socially inept (like Chess club and D&D). In our increasingly consumer driven, image conscience MTV culture, the average American student doesn't want to be associated with such things.
2) This push for profits in the corporate sector has almost killed R&D in theoretical sciences and engineering. The days of "pure" research labs such as Bell Labs died in the late eighties and early ninties because the suits only understood investment in research that led to products and services. I used to work during the summer at AT&T Bell Labs and Bellcore, and the attitude back then certainly does not exist in their moden day incarnations today (Lucent and Telcordia). Even though I'm not fan of Microsoft, I have to admit that their notion of R&D is closest to the days where scientists could research for the sake of doing research.
In other words, why study CS if you're only going to be able to find a job doing web design?
3) The rapid growth tech industry is racing towards to what all markets eventually succumb: commoditization. Assembly line programming is seen (once again by the corporate sector, invented by IBM and heralded by many as dogma) as the cheapest way to get to market. Too many companies believe that software design is about the perfect design document via UML. Once you have that (they believe), you can hire a gaggle of marginally skilled programmers for implementation. What happened to the days where a couple of geniuses could write killer apps? When will we see another Thompson and Ritchie write UNIX ? These guys did this while working for corporate interests! Sadly, today's tech companies aren't interested in people like them.
What these companies forget is this: programming is creative expression, and creativity needs to be cultured and encouraged to grow. Hire a few smart people, let them dream and you will eventually have a great product -- and hundreds of cool worthless demos
Companies like Google seem to get this. We need more Googles in the world.
So, is the problem fixable? In my opinion: no, it's too late. But the open source movement shows that creative coding has evolved from a solo exercise to a shared endeavor. And maybe that's not so bad an ending.
I see two major factors that people don't seem to want to discuss.
1) The Y2K process employed a large number of programmers that are honestly no longer needed.
2) The shortages of programmers for Y2K caused Programmer Salaries to expand
The problem with the modern US economy is that Wages do not tend to be allowed to go down. Out-sourcing to other Countries is very much a direct result of this. Companies are stuck with huge numbers of US programmers that earned big bucks at the turn of the century, and they are very reluctant to start making a bunch less than they were.
What *must* happen is that US Salaries for programming go down. Once (IF) that happens, the demand will return.
The worst thing that could happen is if the Government gets involved and tries to prop up the over-inflated wages, and tries to penalize companies for outsourcing. Then companies will just have to go out of business, and whole sections of the industry will be gone.
Separately, one area that is going to continue to be a viable job source is Medium Enterprises that do alot of internal programming. Especially with more and more Open Source alternatives coming about, companies are going to need the Nerds and Geeks to implement specializations for their company on top of that software.
I attend law school in the upper Midwest - Michigan to be exact. Along one of the main streets I take to get to campus are countless empty buildings that say "For Lease", and these buildings are not manufacturing jobs that left the country, but office-complexes that once housed the so-called "jobs of 21st century." I won't even go into the empty factories that operate as decaying monuments to what was once a great and mighty nation that reached for Empire and obtained destruction its place.
There is a massive hollowing out of our country and it is as broad as it is deep. The only winners in this economy are the select, elite few, that are able to capitalize and enjoy the outsourcing of, well - everything.
I got out of the so-called high-tech sector after rough 15 years and opted for law school due to my impression that the only two viable careers left in this country would be (possibly) healthcare and litigation, although even these are subject to outsourcing.
How is that our country can spend record deficits with GDP per person now approaching levels we haven't seen since World War II (a time of massive industrial re-growth), yet have such a rock crap poor economy? The reason is simple: we don't make much of anything anymore. We don't even manufacture all of the basic munitions we drop on Iraq to kill people - it comes from China and other 3rd world countries because it's cheaper than building it here. Oh yes, the contracts themselves go to American companies, but they in turn outsource everything from bullets to bombs to programmers. It's just another one of those un-told stories the zombies in the media don't report on.
Aside from the joy that might come from open-source programming and working with a worldwide community of people, you would have to be crazy to pursue anything "tech" as an actual career in America. Sure. You might make an ok living as a consultant, or maybe helping small businesses (what remains of them), but hopes of working for Microsoft or Oracle or IBM or... whatever... take your pick... is akin to basing your future on being an NBA player because you were good at playing hoop in high school or college.
This is not to say that there are no tech-jobs in America, or that there will never be any tech jobs remaining. I'm sure even Haiti has a few programming positions open, but in terms making it an actual career choice for the long-term... you'd better get a CAT Scan before making that leap.
This is the big reason why I returned for my MBA recently. Having been unemployed, then doing contract work, and then netwoking my arse off to get a permanent job again all in the space of 2.5 years, I'm very happy with my decision.
I think many of the posters here are correct, in that not all jobs will be going overseas. There will be defense work, very domain-centric work, and inefficiencies in the outsourcing business model that resist scaling.
But I don't think any of this is insurmountable over the long term.
Defense work? We could eventually transfer portions of it to NATO allies in Eastern Europe. True, there are secrecy and clearance issues, but probably nothing a few lobbyists, congressmen, and other pond scum couldn't eliminate over a period of time.
Domain knowledge? Very easily exported to your competitors, I'm afraid. You'd better be the best system engineer in your field. Too bad for the other 99% of you.
Economies of scale? The best offshoring business models will evolve and survive, and this issue will disappear. Just give it time to develop in a free market.
My advice to you, if you're still in software for a living, is to diversify. Not specialize, mind you, but diversify. Get the MBA, or another degree, while you still have a job. (The pursuit of an MBA helped me land a permanent software gig, believe it or not.) I don't expect to be in this line of work when I'm fifty (14 years from now), and frankly, neither should you.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
Last month I talked to a friend who is CEO of a company with about 100 software engineers in both Bangalore and Silicon Valley. He rated his India engineers better than his U.S. engineers. If he had to trim one location (he doesn't) it would be the U.S. On the topic of costs, he said that while the current pay rates are 5 Bangalore engineers to 1 Silicon Valley engineer, the real costs are closer. After taking into account extra overheads (e.g., travel) and loss of productivity caused by poor communications the current overall costs are more like 3.5 to 1. And due to rising salaries and costs in Bangalore he expects this to be 2 to 1 in a few years.
His key to making sure the loss of productivity on both ends didn't rise so far as to make it a negative sum game, was having good management at both ends capable of leading independent projects so less communications across the ocean would be needed.
BTW: USA Today just reprinted the story, so the Slashdot lead would have been better written as "The Christian Science Monitor reports ..." even though the original article
is much the same.
Look at the spending/revenue graphs for the last 8 years - under Clinton, we had positive cash flow and there was talk of even paying the debt off - under Bush (just like under his father), HUGE DEFICITS.
Another 4 years of Bush and the Republican congress = Financial MELTDOWN.
Bush has proven he cannot govern, cannot manage, and cannot control spending.
Get a job at a Defense contractor. It will never be outsourced, cannot be filled by visa holders, and is always well funded.
Any article that quotes Norman Matloff as an expert on these issues is worthless...
From The Jobs Crunch we see why this is important:
Seastead this.
Hey, I know a guy named Brian! You mean there are Brians in India too? Brian Gupta has a nice Irish-Indian ring too it.
I completely agree. From my experience working with others programmers. There are very few who really have the logical mind to be a good programmer. I really believe that many of these people they are training to be programmers in these countries probably don't have the necessary skills/mindset to ever be considered a "good programmer"
.com .. it's a way to provide crap service to western countries and rip off corporations.
I really believe that the PR people behind these Indian companies are doing a good job making themselves known. They are getting large corporations to move certain projects over to their country. Taking large numbers of middle class jobs away from us. However, at this point in time, I really don't feel threatened by offshoring. I am a self employed programmer / software engineer who does large jobs for big corporations and I am always there when they need me. If they were to ditch me and outsource to India, they would loose that relationship they have. I believe that the best customer service makes a company 10x more valuable and someone in a foreign country will not be able to meet with you hands on.
Now lets say they have someone locally here who project manages the jobs and handles the corporate relations, and your programmers are in india working on your projects. You would need someone who understands the project and can scope it out completely. This person would need to have a vast understanding of programming languages and would need to understand the project the client wants. Now if you are talking about extremely large scale projects where you need a large group of programmers I could see this being a benefit. However these so called "code monkeys" with poor english will not be able to provide understandable documentation and comments in their code will probably be a joke. I would absolutely love to get my hands on some applications that have been done in India to review the code. I believe in quality. And a third world country cannot provide quality. Large corporations think quantity over quality which is rarely ever the best way. The CEO: "I'm gonna get 25 programmers for the price of my 5 programmers" Although the CEO fails to understand the value of a good programmer who will write quality code.
I've dealt with customer service over the phone with my cable company, dell, and a few others and the lack of good English just infuriates me. It drives me nuts when I can't understand someone or they can't understand me. Then you start talking technical and forget it. Outsourcing is the new
It's kind of like uptime. A server that has 99% uptime is much cheaper then a server with 99.9999% uptime.
An offshore developer can develop software but there are some problems. It takes longer to change the software as it's developed, some communication problems exist, and most importantly a remote developer can't understand the problem from where you are sitting.
For some applications these problems are not a big deal, when the work is well defined and straight forward you don't need the perks of an onsite programmer. But when you need to have a developer understand what you want developed, an onsite developer is well worth the extra cost.
You need to find out what tool is best for the job. Picking the wrong one can be quite costly. Running a mission critical accounting system on a cheap clone PC is a bad idea, but so is using an IBM zSeries 900 solely for tracking your appointments. Pick the right tool for the job.
Collector: Bring out yer dead American Programmers!
Man with body: Here's one.
Collector: That'll be ninepence.
Not-quite-dead programmer: I'm not dead.
Collector: What?
Man with body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
Not-quite-dead programmer: I'm not dead.
Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Man with body: Yes he is.
Not-quite-dead programmer: I'm not.
Collector: He isn't.
Man with body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
Not-quite-dead programmer: I'm getting better.
Man with body: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
Not-quite-dead programmer: I don't want to go on the cart.
Man with body: Oh, don't be such a baby.
Collector: I can't take him.
Not-quite-dead programmer: I feel fine.
Man with body: Oh, do me a favor.
Collector: I can't.
Man with body: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
Collector: I promised I'd be at the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
Man with body: Well, when's your next round?
Collector: Thursday.
Not-quite-dead programmer: I think I'll go for a walk.
Man with body: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
Not-quite-dead programmer: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[whack]
First they came for the Manufacturers
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Manufacturer
Then they came for the Programmers
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Programmer.
Then they came for the Burger Flippers
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Burger Flipper.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
If you want a guaranteed good job with good benefits, then learn the arab languages (farsi, arabic, etc). The CIA is always going to need people to translate stuff for them and it is unlikely the "war on terror" will be won anytime soon.
This is yet another example of someone taking a current trend and then drawing a straight line and declaring impending doom.
There are consequences and feedback involved in any trend and things will eventually reach an equilibrium point.
Although the internet helps with the logistics of working with someone half way around the world, it does not eliminate all of the problems. You must specify things more completely to the person on the other side of the world or risk introducing errors into the process. Developing the specs costs money and properly maintaining the specs costs even more money. This eats into the savings. Many processes are too important to introduce this risk. I work on things that can easily cost $250,000 to have a process interrupted for a single day. Saving a few bucks on the programmer doesn't make much sense.
There is not an over abundance of skilled and experienced programmers in India. Much of the feedback that I have received is that the quality varies and it is difficult to manage this. The company selling the service insists that everyone is top notch but when you get the code back you realize that they handed it over to some kid fresh out of school. They are half way around the world so you have no contact with the actual programmers to assess their skills.
I think that there are plenty of areas were it would make sense to seek out the cheapest labor but there are a lot of areas where it does not make sense. The economy will continue to grow. Computers will continue to be more pervasive and there is going to be a ton of work for programmers. You may just have to adjust to the changes and make the best of them. I've said this before a bunch of times. Change isn't always bad. There is ALWAYS an opportunity if you have some imagination and the balls to pursue it.
Endangered Species? Sweet! Now it's finally against the law to kill and eat me!
So eating Slashdotters is now illegal? But I like eating pussies!
--
A.C. (Anonymous Cunnilinguist)
With the staunch stances against stem-cell reseach biomed is fleeing quickly. Government supported pigopolists (RCIA, MPAA) hinder the advancement of software and technology here and abroad as much as possible. Idiotic software patents make the independent software house a dying breed. A well hated monopoly (Microsoft) is the only tech company the government will listen to and they're trying everything they can to get in bed with the RIAA/MPAA.
Let's face it, the US is selling out our technological superiority to the highest bidder. Is it any wonder Joe Schmuck with a basic business degree can make more filing TPS reports than decent code-gurus?
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
like many of you all, i've seen the landscape of software change dramatically over the last few years. most of the time, there are 15 indians to one white guy (usually me) on most of the projects i work on.
indians are just like us in that there are some good, some bad, and some brilliant people. but in all cases they work much cheaper than us.
clearly they are just as capable and not going away. personally, i pin my future on my own entrepreneurial projects so i don't feel dependent on a job per se. anyone that does must expect a drop in income, that much seems clear. all the moaning and legislative proposals can't change the basic laws of supply and demand.
A report on Newsforge (which is part of OSTG along with Slashdot) shows the flip side of the coin.
How does this report show the flip side? The article discusses the success of WiPro - the leading IT offshoring company, which supports the original argument.
Is why Linda Dillman was quoted in the Sept. 27 issue of Information Week saying "We'd be nuts to outsource."
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
What you say might be the case at this point in time but it doesn't mean that this is the way it will and should always be. This is really largely caused by the fact that the software industry is young and programming has not entirely left the realm of hacking. Consider other areas of engineering (the so-called real engineering) and you will see that in these fields the engineers rarely get to lay brick, so to speak. There's nothing that requires an engineer to be a coder in the long run. In fact I think that it might be beneficial for an engineer to not be a coder because it will force them to stay away from programming hacks and rely solely on first principles and actual developed science in solving their problems.
George Bush has a solution and he told us all about it at the last debate: He will retrain us!
He has made available copious piles of cash to remold our now useless software development skills into something useful, like, ahhhh... word processing!
This sig intentionally left blank.
LOL yeah one Nissan Plant close to Jackson Mississippi! lol.
what?
I'm sitting here in a temp job writing specs for an offshore (India) company with 70 programmers. :(
i don't remember folks in IT raising hell when manufacturing were being moved to cheaper countries. i've got the sense that most were thinking: "well, low-skill work like manufacturing will go to cheaper couuntry, and it probably should be - it's about free trade and free market." now the same thing hits us, we are clamoring for protectionism and racist remarks...
i should know better what to expect at this website, but i bet most of the folks in IT
He backs his research up. Why do you not trust him? Can you point a problem in his numbers or his methodoliges?
In fact, it it the "pro-business" groups that munge up their numbers.
Norm Matloff is a good academic and his point of views are quite mainstream and often make good sense both poltically and economicly.
A compnay I used to work for uses a interesting combination of offshoring. They keep the "core" product developers happy and well-paid in this country. There are just a handful of them... less than a dozen.
.NET work and the forms are VB or C#... work that WAS done by US developers who weren't really Computer Science grads, but History/English majors in college who jumped into programming for the money.
In India (and surprisingly Vietnam), they out-source the UI development - the actual screen development. This is
The immigrants that made this country what it is were of a different caliber. They came here to work hard and make something of themselves and contribute back to society.
Today's immigrants are a bunch of 'you owe me' freeloaders and are here for the handouts and to ruin our country.
And don't be so sure my ancestors were immigrants, we do have something called 'native Americans', if you remember your history.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I have known people from all over the world, and I can understand almost every accented version of English out there.
Except for Indian english.
The problem is, I have a hearing loss in the upper ranges of my hearing. Not only does this make it hard to hear my S.O. whining (bliss!) but in addition, makes it VERY hard to understand the prototypical Indian accent, which seems to drag half of every syllable up an octave. This is especially fun when, in the course of my daily job, I have to call Toshiba's hardware technical support number and argue with one of their technicians about whether or not the head crashed in the laptop HD again.
Of course, this is my problem, and I'm expected to adapt or get out of the way.
InThane
The asteroid hit here about two years ago. Suggest you accumulate bacon grease for those long, cold, winter nights.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
Get rid of the programmers, get rid of the engineers . Slash R&D to nothing. Ban outright the most promising science (stem cell etc.)Where is the next big tech thing going to come from? Not here. The US is very rapidly following the trajectory of the postwar UK (Without the cool accents). Our captians of industry ceed one cutting edge field after another.
Of course if we have no manufacturing, programming or engineering what is going to support defense? How do we support the trade deficit? How does the dollar remain the default currency?
So you were outsourcing both design and implementation work? We'll probably end up outsourcing some projects simply because we don't have the capacity currently and don't plan on hiring more developers. However, we'll most likely do the design ourselves and then ship them interfaces to implement. That way any screwups are limited to a particular implementation of an interface and won't affect the system as a whole.
You know, there are all kind of statistics out there, but I want to bring it down to an individual.
Mr. President, what do you say to someone in this country who has lost his job to someone overseas who's being paid a fraction of what that job paid here in the United States?
BUSH: I'd say, Bob, I've got policies to continue to grow our economy and create the jobs of the 21st century. And here's some help for you to go get an education. Here's some help for you to go to a community college.
And so the person you talked to, I say, here's some help, here's some trade adjustment assistance money for you to go a community college in your neighborhood, a community college which is providing the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century. And that's what I would say to that person."
Washington Post Debate Transcript
I'm conservative, but I'm not going to blindly follow or reject someone based on their political label. To the person whose unemployment is about to run out and is unable to find a job, even with a bachelors degree, such a statement was stupid and insensitive.
Let me paraphrase it for you: "we're creating jobs and we'll give you money to go get education so that you can get a job and that's all you'll get."
1. If as the article says, some jobs go abroad but most of the increase in domestic jobs was absorbed by workers coming here:
a. the H1-B visa doesn't exempt the worker from paying federal income tax. At that point the worker is doing as much good for the country as any other worker
b. the worker is possibly on his/her way to becoming a citizen. then
2. where's the "extinction"? you still have a programming job being done in america, paying taxes in america and maybe by a "new" american.
When was it ever different?
3. If the US had a net increase in programming jobs despite being in a recovery from an economic aberation that bid up the price of programming talent, even while many programming jobs opened up in places like India, that suggests to me that the world wide demand for programmers has only continued its long upward trend.
While that trend continues, my challenge as a programmer on a US payscale trying to compete when software can be written anywhere that people speak a little english and can get a college education, is to keep up with emerging needs and techniques and to make sure I choose application areas where there is a lock-in for my services or the tools available make me so productive that my wages are not the major factor in the cost of the components or systems I work on.
Probably why USA Today is not among my bookmarks.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Yep. Home of the hack writers all right.
(rolls eyes)
But this *was* my backup plan!
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
You have to add back in all the jobs that foreign car manufacturers have created in the US. And you can't count the jobs lost to technological improvement; automotive companies invest heavily in technology that reduces their labor costs, which often means a loss of jobs.
To quote a friend of mine who worked in the industry:
"You don't even bother doing a cost benefit analysis to compare a $500,000 machine to worker who earns 70 cents a day." He also explained that the 70 cents a day was a NAFTA wage cap and the coompany had to provide free food and shelter to its employees because they couldn't live on the maximum salary they were legally allowed to have.
Then again, some poorly trained employees cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars in luxury car recalls by failing to set up a machine properly.
oops.
Having had elementary school in both Taiwan and the US, I've gotten a bit of an insight into this difference in education.
In taiwan they _made_ us do more. Everyone was expected to memorize multiplication tables and recite poems and write essays and everything else. If you didn't do well, often you got your knuckles hit with a ruler. (This was many years ago - I don't think they do that anymore). And the parents were in on it too - most kids I knew didn't spend that much time running around outside or playing video games. The problem was that we were getting injected with information, but a lot of the connections simply weren't there. We did not really explore things. Also, (partly due to class size, there was something like 60 kids in my class for one teacher to deal with) there wasn't much thought given to different learning styles or learning speeds.
In contrast, when I went to elementary school in the US (this was after Taiwan) I was encouraged to explore what I learned. In part because I had learned some of it in Taiwan, I ended up well ahead of most others in my class. But instead of just blindly learning what got put in front of me I was instead allowed to explore things where they took me. I guess I could say I learned how to learn, without it being forced on me.
Of course, this was just elemenatary school. However, given the systems, if I had stayed at Taiwan, I probably would have learned more, but in the end, might not have a very good idea how to apply it, or how to explore new avenues of thought. In contrast, I feel the most important thing I got out of my education here was how to find connections between what I already know and new things, and how to incorporate those things into my "working" knowledge rather then just have an encyclopedia on call in my brain. I sometimes feel it's the difference between a computer and the person in front of the computer.
This is not to say that foreign students are necessarily worse then American ones. It just that I think the emphasis is different between the systems. I know foreign countries have consistently done better in tests and physic and math competitions and whatnot, but I don't find that to be all that good an indication of whether an educational system is "better" or not. What happens when you give those kids something which is completely unrelated to anything they've seen in a textbook? Can they start breaking down the problem and even be able to figure out what needs to be answered to solve the problem?
And the other big difference I find is the motivation of the students. In school here in the US, many of my classmates' primary goal was to play as many video games as possible, or always be watching TV, or something like that. And I feel if the student doesn't want to learn, there really isn't much we can do about it. It's something parents have to instill into their children. Here in America, I feel that if you really want to learn, the opportunities are still better then anywhere else. Elsewhere, like in Taiwan, school is set up more to make you learn no matter what.
Raising the minimum wage will just shift more of those types of jobs elsewhere.
I'm a white american and the biggest fools I have ever worked with/for have been white americans. I look forward to working with the Indians or Chinese or whomever else (if I still have a job).
"... No you stupid, smelly brahmin, all the grunt coding work goes to you coolies, the creative work remains here...."
I wonder if the comp science world is similar to the manufacturing world. That is, I work for a large commercial airline company in Seattle and at one point was an engineer in the factory. There, the design engineers pummped out the designs and the "coolies" had to build the designs. And it never ceased to amaze me how much these "coolies" could teach the engineers about designing a "buildable" design.
Maybe it works different with software... I dunno
It didn't take me long in my first house before i realized i would never hire a plumber or electrician again, when both bill at 100/hr or more. I can buy an awful lot of plumbing/electrical tools for the price of one job, and then i learn a new skill myself in the process. I did pay pro electricians to put a new main service head and panel in my last house, but that was strictly required by local code to be done by licensed pros, and i didn't really have the guts to try that task myself :)
The way i see it, this country will continue spiraling out of control such that the only white collar profession left is working in the legal industry... either as a lawyer or for a lawyer.
So, my plan, when it comes to pass, is to become a plumber. I figure plumbers will be in high demand and i can bill whatever i want and choose which jobs to pass up.
Because with that many lawyers running around, the shit is going to be awfully deep.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Having one's data center (and one's critical corporate data) on the other side of the planet can be extremely unsettling to a company when the comm link between the company and the data center goes down...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
There are several ways of offshoring:
- Outsource to a company in your country that offshores for you. Pros: someone responsible is in a timezone close to you and (probably) grew up speaking your langauge Cons: Another layer of removal from the technical folks. Possible distance issues.
- Open a division in the target country and hire locals. Pros: Same hiring and training as your US staff, plus you get to quality-control the hires. Cons: Possible distance issues.
- Outsource to a company in another part of the world. Pros: Local management which can interact with local HR, recruiting and day-to-day management issues more effectively (in theory). Cons: You can't be sure you aren't sharing resources, and the company might have "more important customers".
I think that I would prefer the second option, and most of the distance issues are related to either language or time-zone, so you can minimize those problems by selecting a country that has a fairly high percentage of english (or your country's) speakers and is in your hemisphere (in the US, for example, Mexico can be an excellent choice). Almost all workers in Mexico who have the education to work with US tech companies can speak english and they are in US timezones. Plus, a flight from the US to Mexico or visa versa takes far, far less time, money and physical stamina than a flight to Asia. For European countries, I suggest looking at the more stable African nations and at Eastern Europe.If you do it right, you're simply becoming an international company, not "outsourcing". This can benefit your local employees a great deal. In the long run, this can be far more beneficial than just reducing your overhead costs, as you have a foothold in a nation whose economy is expanding, and you can sell your product or service in both nations. Lather, rinse, repeat.
To workers in G8 nations who are concerned about losing their jobs... stop and think about the new realities of outsourcing for a minute and you will see that there are new needs for you to fill. For example, do you think the demand will be high or low for software architects in the US who can speak Indian? Do you think the demand will be high or low for tech writers who can read and write Indian or various eastern European or Asian languages? If you're a manager, look around. I'm sure there are classes you can take in Asian culture. What a win it would be to know more about those you'll have to manage, eh?
What's this OSTG and what happened to the OSDN? Is it just a new name? Or... what happenend?
**grin**
Yeah, that's what we all said.
"This is totally insecure, but very convenient."
If your company is big enough, they'll just hire their own workforce there as well as the managers who will make sure they care. This is what Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, and even Google does. An increasing number of MS testers (and a decent portion of MS Research) is in China. Not because there are mass layoffs (hundred people here or there, and they're not laid off but told to find other positions within the company in 6 weeks), but because there's no open headcount for anything. Also, there's a gigantic MS campus in Bangalore, just finished. So even though MS still hires in the US, it's just to compensate for attrition here. Most of the action will be in Bangalore. I know, I work for MSFT.
I can see more of this happening in the near future.
And you're from Germany? If you would read some history, you know that we kicked your ass twice!!!
In fact, we still occupy Germany.
I've spent the last 2.5 years trying to stay in the software development market. I've been doing it since 1980. But I've given up. Being in my mid-40's I just can compete with the offshoring. I'm now working in Real Estate. And if I could figure out how to earn a living by playing Eve-Online then I would just do that. ;) Bye, bye, programming jobs. It's been fun while it lasted.
TheTiminator
Don't go getting your panties all in a bunch. Look, the bottom line is that while outsourcing hurts, it's not the end of the world. Not everybody works for large corporations you know. According to the SBA (Small Business Administration), small businesses represent 99.7 percent of all employers and small businesses employ 50.1 percent of the private work force.
So even if all of the large corporations outsourced every junior programming position, junior programming jobs would still exist, they would just be harder to find.
Everyone is talking about US is going to lose all the jobs.. i haven't read all the threads but have you thought about india become wealthy.. wealthy enought that instead of 1 dollar being 40or over ruppes... They match and its 1:1 ratio... Then wut.. all the jobs are going to come back here.. the way everything is going that is bound to happen... just another way of looking at it
I think a more interesting prospect is that in the next 20 years, programmers by in large will become extinct due to the fact that computers will be able to writer their own, better programs. I mean all the programmers I've ever met (me included) are lazy sods. Once we figure out how to get the machine to reliably program itself, well then our whole field (species) is probably mostly useless. Does this mean we will disapear ala the dinosaurs. I think not. As long as humans exist they will need other humans to communicate for them. The humans best suited to talking to computers will probably be those who have been doing it the longest, programmers.
.. and come to California. We have guys working in my neighborhood on structural, plumbing, electrical, etc, driving all the way from Texas, Washington, etc, and charging $75 an hour. There is demand for truly skilled work, not some guy who was herding sheep in Central America 3 weeks earlier who is going to accidentally chainsaw through a water pipe trying to fix an electrical problem.
I have worked at too many companies where we needed coding done on the fly with proprietary systems. This usual meant sitting down the programmer with a customer waiting for a return call ASAP. How would I do that with a programmer in India?...
The issue is not the trees, but the forest. Even though a lot of programming jobs are best local, there can still be a huge glut.
Let's say there are a million programmers. 500,000,000 of those positions are foreign-able, and 500,000,000 are not.
If you stay in the job where it is not an issue, you are perhaps okay. But if you have to enter the job market for ANY reason, you are then competing with 500,000,000 other programmers out of work. There is simply too many chasing too few jobs.
Further, your boss might fire you because he knows he can get somebody cheaper (citizen or not) now that the rates are down.
Table-ized A.I.
Manufacturing jobs haven't disappeared. The U.S. produces far more cars today than it did in the 1950s. It just makes them in highly automated factories whose workers are paid much better than ever before for more comfortable and safer work. And if we hadn't automated, those jobs would have simply gone to automated factories in Japan.
Similarly, programming jobs won't disappear. Some will move to India, giving the people there more money to buy from us, the world's trendsetter in almost every area. And many jobs will stay here. For most businesses, it'd be stupid to hire someone halfway around the world to do work he won't be able to understand. In programming, hire local will still be the best idea.
What will happen is that the market will mature. Many products will become good enough for the needed task that little labor needs to be spent improving them. Unlike many products, software doesn't wear out and Linux/open source will strip Microsoft and its cohorts of their ability to force unnecessary upgrades.
Those who want the government to 'do something to protect our jobs' want us to follow Western Europe into government subsidies and the protection of selected industries. The results are likely to be like that of France and Germany--near stagnent economies with little innovation and unemployment rates almost twice our own.
The scariest remark in the USA article is the Mr. Miano who dropped programming and went to law school. The biggest threat to programming jobs isn't outsourcing, it's the growing potential for lawsuits that choke competition and crush small companies. The mess that VP-candidate/lawyer John Edwards and his cohorts made of medicine could afflict the software world. THAT is the real bad news.
--Mike Perry, Inkling blog , Seattle
*SMACK!*
I have been wondering, though - before I got fired, after, and even now - what if I hadn't been able to find a job? The truth is, there were several possibilities (heh, had one come in from guru.com this morning that looked like it would be a cool deal as a smalltime temp contract) - but it seems like those possibilities are dwindling. Maybe it is the economy - but then again, maybe programming is going away?
I am 31, I only have a "technical associates degree" from a small school, hardly any college experience (a couple of community college classes), no real degree. I also have a mortgage, bills and a family (well, my wife and a dog - no kids yet) to take care of. My main domain of knowledge is computing, in all of its forms - and programming specifically. This is what I love, this is what I do best. Given a job having to do with computers, an employer can expect me to work very hard to make them do what they want them to do. I know there are others that feel this way to.
I can't afford to go back to school - I don't have the time, I certainly don't have the money. I am living my life now, just wanting enough to be comfortable, and have a little fun now and then. So - serious question - what happens to a person like me if all the programming/computer jobs go away?
The outcome of such a situation doesn't seem rosy. I likely would end up in a job I would hate, doing something just to keep the roof over my head. That isn't the kind of life I am willing to lead - working at a job I hate for less money than I feel I am worth. I can't think of any job I would really like, that I have the knowledge or ability to do, that doesn't involve computers. There are jobs that I wouldn't mind doing - but I don't know if they exist, nor do I have the required experience for them even if they did?
One thing my wife and I discussed when this occurred was basically "chucking it all": Liquidating *all* of our assets, except for bare basics, buying a cheap RV, sticking the rest of the money in an account somewhere (and maybe some in an IRA) - and then becoming road hippies and travelling the continent. That would be a better life than a dead end unforgiving hateful job.
But seriously - are there other options for people in mine or similar situations? People who have little money to spend to educate themselves on the "next thing" (what is that, anyhow?) - I can't even think of a career path that won't suffer the same or similar fate as programming, etc. Becoming a lawyer, or a doctor, or a "healthcare professional", or a biotechnologist (yeah, I have the time and money for any of those - right)? About the only job I might have a shot at, that can't be off-shored, and people would need - would be either an air-conditioning repairman or auto-mechanic (and I still don't have the money to pay for such education). Plus, I don't relish the thought at doing either of those jobs (harsh and hazardous working conditions - though either one sounds somewhat interesting to do).
Ideas, comments, suggestions? All I can do right now is work as hard as I can doing what I know for what it is worth while I can still get a job (and, as I stated before, I did find work) - and save my money, get rid of all of my debt - and hope there is a way out...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
And, no I'm not underpaid. I am well compensated for my work, and in fact make as much or more than any other coder in my company, thank you.
If you want the job of an H1-B worker, just read the papers, there are good jobs for the taking as long as we last. It's when we disappear that things are really going awry.
Read my sig if you like, but I'll never see yours, thanks to Discussions, Viewing, Disable sigs...
A lot of comapanies are coming to a realization that outsourcing doesn't really work that well for most jobs. It works for some (support, manual testing, sustained engineering), but for critical pieces of work it rarely does.
What works, however, is hiring your own people in India and keeping them there, moving the entire products there, Dev, Test, PM, whole enchilada. A few US PMs stay here to gather and forward requirements and oversee development, everything else is there. This is how MS does it, so expect others to join the trend soon.
This doesn't seem to be an option for small to medium size companies, though. Those will either rely on US workforce or go out of business (which is fine with big corporations).
Just kidding, stick it to him.
Ive been working as a programmer in India for the past 5 years now. Trust me the work that Indians do is mind numbingly boring. Stuff that no self respecting programmer would call 'programming' in the first place. The reason why such projects get outsourced in the first place is bcos companies realise its not rocket science and as its similar to giving monkeys instructions, better outsource it to a country that expects peanuts in return. There is not one single major multinational that does not have a tech office in India today. Everyone's here, but you'll be appalled to see the kind of work that is done here. Its quite apparant that the best work is done in your own country. I can give examples - IBM (hires close to 10,000 in India) shittiest of work, high attrition rates, you name it. Microsoft - Huge office in Hyderabad, all the work is nothing but testing and very very very lil of actual product development. Oracle - Again hires around 3000 in India - bullshit work. I can name a lot many, but the essence of what im saying is, outsourcing is not affecting the brainiacs of your country. Stop whining and update your skills. Become smarter. Do something about your loss of jobs. Programming in India is akin to flippin burgers. get it now ??. An Indian.
articles like this really chap my hide, because they equate programming with any computer oriented job. If you design web pages, you are not a programmer (unless you write your own back-end apps - Writing HTML does not count). They always post dire statistics about "computer professionals" in Silicon Valley not being able to find jobs, but how many of those professionals have technical degrees? How many of them were liberal arts majors who lucked into a technical labor shortage in the late 90's? How many of them were accountants for failed dot-coms? Yes, the job market for degreed professionals, but not as bad as that article makes it out to be.
Sometimes I doubt your committment to SparkleMotion!
Have you seen that commercial (for a shipping company that will remain unnamed) where one employee is trying to explain to employer number two, how to ship their product? Employer number two replies rather condescendingly with "but I have an MBA." And employee number one retorts, "well then, I better walk you through it."
Training to be top level managers means diddly without prior work experience. You just can't expect to be inserted at the top after 2 to 4 years of didactic study without hands-on experience; and expect to shine. It'll be interesting to see the status of US programmers in the future.
Linux at home
I'll be crossing over to the dark side. MBA here I come. I think I hate myself now...
Free speech is getting expensive...
well, it means "undifferentiated product", really. i stand by the point: not all things are commodities.
check out the wikepedia discussion on commodity if you're still struggling with this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity
Import and export of commodities is taxes, regularted, lobbied for... Orange Juice imports are taxed, to protect domestic growers.
Why not code?
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
What the hell am I reading Slashdot for?
Seeya....
Disclaimer: MINAA (Mummy! I'm Not An Animal!)
The local coders I know from India are well educated and talented. I would rate them above average compared to the Canadian educated folks in our work force.
Low quality from outsourcing efforts stems more from issues remotely managing groups than any lack of Indian programmer skills. While it will be easier for a US company to remote manage Canadian because of Cultural similarity and Time zone considerations. IMO it just wouldn't be worth the small dollar savings to outsource.
I am in Canada, and I deal with team members in India, Brazil and the USA. The difficulties are fairly similar.
Co-location of design effort is almost always a poor choice. Unless you get a big payoff I don't know why you would do it. Because you take a big hit in efficiency, us vs them mentality etc.
We do a terrible job managing local programming teams, so it is farcical to watch the same people try to manage remote teams in different time zones. I have yet to see these efforts pay off.
Smart companies won't outsource Anything of strategic importance. They will work on attracting the best people and removing the obstacles that stifle their productivity.
I would take a team of 4 excellent local developers, over a remote team of 20 outsourced bodies any day of the week.
To be clear, I don't think outsourcing really makes much sense unless what you are doing is so simple that a trained monkey could do it.
If I were forced to outsource something and deal with all the problems of losing managing control and external location, then I would go for the cheapest price out there. India or China...
Canada or a even a different US state makes no sense IMO. Either save a ton of money or do it in house.
This phenomenon is something that consistent readers of Slashdot will find American programmers are incapable of.
Now HERE is a complete sentence.
subject: This phenomenon
verb: is
object: something
"that consistent readers of Slashdot will find American programmers are incapable of" is a restrictive clause, used to specify which particular "something" the speaker is talking about. Without the "This phenomenon is" there is no subject and there is no verb because of that "that".
Now what is being ignored is that using sentence fragments is perfectly acceptable in casual, particularly spoken, English. One can even find incomplete sentences in published fiction! Gasp!
-If (American Programmer, for the record)
I was going to add a smarmy remark about project managers to compete with the line-item crack... but it's not worth it - since I'm right.
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
Don't forget that most H1-B's were educated overseas, so they enter the US labor pool qualified at the expense of taxpayers from another country. When calculating whethter H1-Bs hurt or help the US economy, this should be factored in as well.
100,000 for years and years equals millions.
We are talking MILLIONS of jobs here, Mr. NetCynicism.
100000 is just the H1-B, add on L1 visa and illegal immigration and outsourcing and other sources of immigration and the NUMBERS ARE HUGE !!!
Sorry, these numbers ARE SIGNIFICANT TO THE AMERICAN ECONOMY.
nice try.
Yeah, but with modern redundant communications and IP protocol, the link going down is very rare if you design it properly (For instance- both your home office and the datacenter should have triple-redundancy power backups using different technologies, you should both have satellite, fiber, copper, and wifi connections to separate backbones, and you should have at least some staff on 24x7 in the data center). Basically, anything short of a nuclear device turning your datacenter into ground zero can be engineered around- and even that can be engineered around by having a second datacenter in Hydrabad. All of this redundancy will be CHEAPER than having a single data center in the United States, thanks to standard of living differences.
That's what we're facing in competition- still sure we can beat it on price and efficiency?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I think this is another political move by the Liberal media to try and make President Bush look bad.
It's sad, really, but everyone will be judged in the end, so let them say what they want.
When I realized that my job was at risk of being cut, and I hated the drudgery of computer work, I shit-canned the IT sector and went back to school.
As more and more global players come online and start offering IT products (hardware, software, etc), one obvious effect is more competition. But it also means an opportunity for more specialization.
Right now, however, it seems to me that our industry itself is helping to enflame this issue. How many IT departments do you know that refuse to consider anything but the largest one or two players in a particular segment (be it a database, web server, or whatever)? In effect, we restrict our options because of a mindset. You can reasonably argue that you get better support and a more polished product from the #1 or #2 vendors, but you end up changing your approach based on their tools, as opposed to finding a tool that fits your specific needs. You also typically pay a premium for those products.
There is value in "standards", but how far do you go? Is it really necessary for your company to use exclusively a specific version of a single vendor's web server (as a crude example), when there are perhaps a dozen that all comply with larger, RFC-based standards? Don't laugh--I've seen it at larger companies. In that sense, your company's selection of a particular product is not a true "standard", but only a restriction of choice among products that are all standards compliant. You don't want anarchy and chaos in a datacenter, of course, so I'm not suggesting that it should be a free-for-all either. But I do think we need to strike a balance between the extremes that we don't see today.
What I'm trying to get at is that a larger pool of products and technology can be good for everyone. Companies get exactly what they need, and vendors are able to stay in business. One example might be Apple Computer. They've long been considered to have somewhere under 10% of the computer market, yet they're doing just fine. Some would say they represent a "vertical market" segment. Regardless, you'll never see them in the datacenters of many of these corporations solely because they're not considered the #1 or #2 player in the computing market. If you're a Fortune 500 company, you can refuse to do business with anyone but other Fortune 500 companies, and that's your prerogative. But here's where I see opportunity for smaller, more agile competitors to get an edge. I see the recent X Prize winner as an example of that. Boeing and friends don't seem at all interested in a $10M prize--it's too small for them to notice.
I think the key to the future is compliance with open standards (not to be confused with open source) and a change in mindset. If we can do that, I believe market forces will make it possible for players both domestic (meaning US) and foreign to all share in that market.
As a political observation, the Republican party tends to be friendlier to business (both small and large) than the Democratic party. So it seems to me that the results of this year's elections can have a significant impact on the process above.
And people wonder why poor South American youth form gangs like the Mara Salvatrucha and sell drugs. No one is going to outsource them.
My company is behind the curve with understaning the full effects of offshoring; the one point which I can't stop reiterating to my management is your point of "...it's better to use someone who understands your core buisness ...
".
It is imperative for a comptetive company to have employees understand their firm's core business and STRATEGY. Without employees understanding and exercising their company's strategic goals, the company is far less competitive and efficient than they could be.
I would speculate that a company which is too cheap to invest in its own domestic data center is also going to be too cheap to pay for the level of redundancy that you're talking about.
:-(
Sadly, upper management (in general) doesn't seem to possess a very good understanding of IT or related issues, so the various risks inherent to a distributed infrastructure are likely as opaque to them as are most other technical issues.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Here are a few tidbits I know about outsourcing to India:
1. India (I believe TATA) is home to one of the first two SEI Level 5 software organizations - the other was the NASA shuttle group.
2. Programmers in India are more like $35 per hour rather than $5.
3. The time difference can actually be a benefit as customers can test during the day things that were coded durning the night before.
4. Anyone who has changes to go to code going to production in 30 minutes with a million lines should really review their processes and standards. That sounds like an invitation to failure.
5. Programmers got spoiled just like stock market bubble surfers during the 90's. It makes completely no sense to pay a VB or HTMl guy $80 per hour. I saw even higer rates than that.
To summarize: the Indians are getting the business because they are good programmers who have a good process and charge what the work is worth. The Indian rates have been rising steadily over the past few years and will equalize soon. So I don't really believe the Ameircan programmer is going the way of the Dodo bird.
Have you ever taken a basic course in macroeconomics? One of the huge themes of the course is that if willing trade is taking place, everyone benefits. Your merchantilist idea seems to suggest to stop free trade with other nations, when in reality it has been a big blessing. Free trade might make SOME careers go swooshing out of the US, but there is also a lot of other countries who want American services and products. Places like Toyota employee a good deal of our employment force, and it would be silly to look at programming outsourcing and say "they're taking everything away!"
It has been mentioned, but not put very formally: WAGE RATE IS NOT THE SAME AS PRODUCTIVITY PER DOLLAR. In other words, when a company outsources for a fraction of the wage, they have to consider the efficiency of an American worker and a foreign worker. American productivity levels tend to be much higher, because of better education and better available technology. Don't forget about the QUALITY of the work, either.
In conclusion, it's ignorance like this that makes me wonder if everyone simply wants something to panic about. Take a bit of time to get yourself informed. Maybe you SHOULD go back to college and take an economics course and learn some basic principles. What do you people suppose that Bush do? Restrict free trade? In the long run, that is only going to hurt us. Free trade has been a huge blessing for us; be careful what you do with it.
Some reflections from one of the subjects of the article...
It has now been a decade since I became active in the fight for the professional interests of computer programmers. In 1994 AIG fired hundred of American programmers and replaced them with H-1B workers, all quite legally and openly. That very same year SeaLand did the same.
I thought that would be a warning shot for programmers but nothing has happened.
A number of small groups have formed to fight the public policies that are intent on destroying the programming profesion, these include The American Engineering Association (www.aea.org), TORAW (www.toraw.org), The Programmers Guild (www.programmersguld.org) and WashTech (www.washtech.org). The total membership in all of these organizations together is probably less than 5,000.
In the mean time, industry groups have full time lobbyists and staffs. They organize fund raisers for politicians. They fund the staffs to visit newspaper editorial boards across the country to dish out their propaganda.
And programmers...nothing.
If you take into accout the number of H-1B workers imported, the number of programming jobs has sharply dropped. Since increasing the H-1B quota in 2000, the programmer unemployment rate not only surpassed that of professional workers as a whole for the first time ever but also passed that of the overall unemployment rate. In short, a ditch digger has better employment prospects right now than a programmer.
In the midst of this record high unemployment, industry managed to use up the entire H-1B quota by the first day of the fiscal year. They also have legislation moving to the Senate floor to permanently increase that quota.
And what are programmers doing? HINT (Sin (PI))
If programmers don't start becoming joiners and collectively fight the legislation that is intent on moving almost all software development work overseas they are soon going to be out of work.
I'm lucky. I got a scholarship to go to law school. When the shit really hits fan, not many of you are going to have the same oppportunities. For the most of you who don't have alternate career plans in place, you have either two choices for the future:
1. Start organizing and fighting; OR
2. Start filling out job applications at WALMART.
Finally I share one observation: Almost all the members of the Programmers Guild are over 40. If getting fired and replaced by an H-1B workers or getting laid off at an age where finding a new job is difficult are the only triggers to get programmers active, there is no hope.
Looks like you were ill-informed. India atleast in the last 2 years is awashed with fibre optic cable, most of them are lit and serving the booming outsourcing, BPO and the local wireless carriers.
Almost all software companies are connected thru multiple paths (optic fibre, satellite links, leased line). Bangalore is connected on the fibre to almost all the major world wide optical links (FLAG, SAME, SEMEWE etc). The primary links are Bangalore to Chennai and Vizag then onto Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and ending up on US West coast, and through Cochin and Bombay with connections to Europe, Gulf and Africa and Eastern US.
Many local telecom providers have laid dedicated ocean cable connections: India to Singalore, Gulf Regions, Sri Lanka, Mauritius connecting to numerous world wide fibre routes which land in those respective locations.
Incidentally the biggest owner of undersea fibre cable in the world is an Indian Company! go figure..
The phone service has definitely improved tremendously, in particular the wireless service, almost all providers have excellent coverage and call quality is excellent and unlike in US the call drops are almost no-existant and to top it all they have a great CDMA service, which would put Sprint/Verizon to shame in terms of service quality.
-Cheers!
--Imparinja
I've run out of data I can get my hands on. Also irritating when info probably from a gov't document (which I can find) is instead cited from a paper (which I can't). Not talking about you, of course :)
Anyway, there were roughly 100k jobs added just in the programming/software engineering field, however, and even if total numbers of H-1Bs went up by twice that it's hard to say no new US programmers were hired.
And that ignores that H-1Bs will have higher turnover (skewing the hiring numbers) and the effects of retirees from the field.
I want to ditch the H-1B and L-1s too, I'm just not sure they're necessarily driving US programmers to extinction.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
True enough- but there's a middle ground between the two, and that's what we'll have to figure out how to compete with. The company that goes overseas but doesn't invest in redundancy will go out of business- as will the company who stays here when it's competitors go overseas.
Near as I can tell, the Grimes Labor Equalization Surcharge is the only propsal I've seen so far that has a whelk's chance in a supernova of working. (What's a whelk? And what does it have to do with a supernova? It doesn't matter because it doesn't stand a chance in one.)
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Really, It is folly to export a position based on talent - it's like asking an Indian citizen to write advertising copy for American eyes. I can only agree in all respects with Paul Graham on programmer productivity.
You can make ordinary college graduates productive of software by reducing the task to a declarative spreadsheet, but then there is no longer a need to export the work. Quality control and systems support are still needed, and they are based on knowledge rather than talent, but there seems to be no need to export these functions either.
Michael J. Burns
Welcome to Capitalism. It is not the job of corporations to produce jobs or provide you with a quality of living up to your standards. It is the job of the corporation to make money for it's share holders or more poignantly the "haves".
I know you want to complain but this is the system that many revere at it's base. Get over it, or revamp the system.
Nobody would pay the tax. You can stop a truck full of orange juice at the border and force the driver to pay your tarriff or take the juice back to Mexico. You can also be sure that nobody is importing one liter of juice legally, copying it a million times, and selling that pirated juice as part of another product (orange sorbet, or something).
As we slashdotters are fond of pointing out, it's nearly impossible to keep information (like code) from crossing borders. With strong crypto and p2p networking, it would be impossible to tell if a given packet coming over an international link contains code, and if that code is subject to any taxes. With code (unlike juice) you can import it legally once and pay the tarriff, then incorporate that code into a closed-source system and sell as many copies of that as you want. It would be nearly impossible to prove that you were using imported code.
0 1 - just my two bits
Deleting the code didn't work for you? Maybe the delete functionality in your IDE was designed by Indians too.
Well my current employer started out with about 5 engineers and one manager. Today we have about 20 managers and 2 engineers. The managers all coordinate projects in other states or other countries. The elimination of the last two of us engineers is mathematically certain.
When I get laid off, 1/3 of the job applications are going to be for low-end management, 1/3 for architect, and 1/3 for low-end programmer.
Despite what college students and business leaders say about the titles getting pushed up by outsourcing, I don't expect to ever do management. It looks like the low end programming jobs are growing faster than the management jobs and the requirements for managers have gone from mildly insane to off the charts.
Unless you went to MIT, founded a dozen startups, or worked for free in someone's garage for a couple years, forget about even technical lead. That's with 800,000 programming jobs outsourced, supposedly increasing the management jobs.
We can outsource the job of becoming extinct to another country that can do it cheaper. Problem solved.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
You've hit on the ultimate hypocracy of DC, in particular that of the Republicans. They all clamor for free trade except:
o When dealing with agriculture subsidies.
o Reimportation of drugs
o Sugar tarrifs
o Importation of CDs and software from countries without copyright laws.
Worries about programming jobs being sent to India are misplaced. India, without a MAJOR culture and attitude shift, will *NEVER* be the center of the world's creative software development.
Why? Becaus in India, programming is just another job. A nice, white-collar one... but for the most part, Indian programmers (in India) are about as passionate about programming as a means of creative self-expression as accountants are within their own field. Sure, among a billion people in India there are obviously a few who are passionately into programming... but they're few, far between, generally looked down upon by their peers, and usually end up working in America.
Want evidence? OK. What percentage of American programmers own computers and use them at home. 100%? OK, maybe 99.99999999998%. Now, what percentage of INDIAN programmers own computers and use them at home? Or even WANT a computer to use at home? How many web sites have you ever been to that were created and maintained by Indians living in India? Have you ever seen a single piece of Indian entertainment software -- commercial, shareware, open-source, or otherwise -- created for their domestic market? No. Of course not. There's (almost) no market for it there.
Innovation is definitely not the first word that comes to mind when anyone -- INCLUDING Indians -- thinks about India. Efficiency? Sure. Meticulous quality? Yeah. Strict adherence to detailed procedures? Of course. But raw, bare-metal living-on-the-edge-adrenaline-rush adhoc innovation? No.
How is China different? Like their American peers, Chinese programmers tend to eat, breathe, and live around computers. They're every bit as passionate about them as Americans. And yes, they have a thriving domestic entertainment software industry.
Oh, and the language? Not a big problem anymore. Some of those same passionate programmers came up with a new way to type Chinese on a keyboard that uses keypresses to build characters much the same way someone would write them by hand. With practice, a Chinese computer user can type just as fast as an English-speaking computer user... maybe even 5-10% faster.
Chinese programmers are just as cheap as Indian programmers... but they -- like American programmers -- genuinely get off on programming as a means for creative self-actualization.
The only real advantage India has is the near-ubiquity of English as the de-facto language of business and commerce (with hundreds of regional dialects, there's not much choice). But then again... if you were determined to outsource an important software development project, who would YOU want to have working on it:
* polite, english-speaking programmers who'll give you EXACTLY what you asked for (nothing more, nothing less) and work hard as long as their supervisor walks back and forth to make sure they're working. Until they go home at the end of their shift.
* slightly more chaotic programmers whose English isn't quite as good, but who'll actually CARE if they notice that something in the specs seems stupid and mention it to someone... and happily work all night when they're having one of those caffeine-fueled creative moments.
I've heard similar stories from other developer friends. I don't think off-shore development is here to stay unless the quality of their "product" increases dramatically.
Offshoring is just the 2000's flavor of snake oil that we saw in the 80's and 90's centered on Quality: Total Quality Management, Continuous Quality Improvement, Six Sigma, Malcom Baldrige Awards, etc. In the late 80's and 90's, it was the Japanese Quality Bogyman that was gonna 'get us'. U.S. companies would send their top executives to Japan where they would witness marvelous demonstrations the perfect worker: robots, making it seem as if the Japanese were decades ahead. In reality, they were seeing demonstrations and not the real production lines which were filled with hundreds of humans working their asses off six days a week. Nowadays, executives are touring India and seeing a new bogyman, the perfect, happy, Indian programmer with an advanced degree being paid dirt and enjoying standards of living rivaling top government officials.
Deming and Juran were the false prophets of the great Quality Myth that companies believed in first, and Yourdon is their successor with his 'Decline and Fall'. (Yourdon tried to reverse himself with 'Rise & Resurrection' but I guess optimism isn't as believable as doom and gloom.) Offshoring is just the ignorant trying to fulfill Yourdon's original prophecy.
These judgement day scenarios are based on a big fallacy I haven't yet seen addressed:
.com years. I personally know at least 5 administrators and programmers that refused to ever accept a lower-paying job when things went bad. They lost their cars, their houses, and their dignity as a result, and all for a job none of them liked doing in the first place.
The market for software developers is not standing still; it's growing tremendously. We're just not seeing it because a lot of new development is going overseas. However, there's no sign that the demand is going to slow down, and there's not an infinite number of tech workers overseas.
Already Indian workers are concerned about having their own tech bubble, as other countries start coming online with cheaper workers. China, Phillipines, and others are starting to take work away from India.
Further, despite claims to the contrary, it's not just as easy to move programming jobs overseas as it is for manufacturing jobs. Indian programmers aren't just plucked from the trees...they've gone through years of training and education just like we have. It costs a lot more time and money to train a programmer than to train an assembly-line worker. Again, there are not infinite resources available. It just seems that way because India has been building up a highly-trained workforce for a long time--without work to give them.
Our own tech boom and bust resulted in scads of untrained, unskilled workers getting paid too much to do too little. Reality check: there's no such thing as an HTML programmer. Writing VB is not going to earn you $50/hr. If you don't like what you're doing, you're not in the right line of work. The lion's share of jobs lost to offshoring are jobs that were filled by wannabes during the
Finally, as other posts have noted, the cost of paying a programmer is not the largest portion of developing software. Gathering requirements, testing, working with customers and clients, managing change, administering systems; all enter into it and have similar contributions to the overall cost. In the case of offshoring, almost all of these become more expensive...in some cases much more expensive.
They just don't get hired. I have been hoping to get back into programming, but the market isn't there. What companies are willing to pay for entry-level jobs, is pitiful. Other positions want so much experience it is one extreme to the next. Also, there is more demand for technicians than programmers, just like there are more mechanics than automobile assemblers.
Let's face it. Brains are becomming a cheap commodity. The remaining jobs are growing toward social fluff jobs, and we geeks are weak there.
One of the reasons why we cannot keep up with spammers is that many of them are from low-wage countries with high populations. One just cannot compete with an onslought of cheap geeks. Maybe one can hire cheap geeks over there to fight the spammers, but it is easier for them to cooperate with the dark side. After all, enforcing regulations against an army of cheap geeks takes an army of cheap enforcers, who may not share our interests.
Table-ized A.I.
Gonna have to post this AC
I work for a company that provides software for hospitals and the next version of our software will come out of Indida. This scares the hell out of me because we are going to have support this stuff and not have 1 developer around. Right now if there is some problem, I can run down the hall and ask a developer a question about how it is supposed to work (yes it is that poorly documented). This stuff will be impossible to support when development is in India, hell they probably won't even care that it doesn't work as designed.
My job can't go overseas because of HIPPA, but I am going to have a hell of a time soon.
instead of going into programming to do programming, one might consider going into science that requires a lot of programming. For instance, I'm studying computational biophysics (e.g., simulating cancer growth, chemotherapy, red blood cell deformation, etc.)
But those jobs are even MORE offshorable. The laws of physics and biology are IDENTICLE in Asia as they are here. There is no reason to be physically in the US to do such jobs. At least with business applications, one is often dealing with marketers who must be in touch with US culture in order to sell to them. Plus, marketers are poor documentors, requiring face-to-face contact to read their vague thoughts in order to turn them into code.
Just because it has not happened much yet does not mean it will not.
Table-ized A.I.
It's good that you didn't refer your employer by name. I'm sure no one will figure out what company you're discussing.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
As you say, outsourcing is the "trend du jour". The current trend is fueled by a large supply of people with cheap PCs and very little experience who masquerade as IT workers.
People seem to forget about the 1980's style of outsourcing. The big players (EDS, CSC, etc.) were pitching outsourced data center management. The suits bought it, with mostly disastrous results. If it worked, most IT work would have been consolidated into a few IT companies. The overseas migration would have been fairly simple. But it FAILED. The only way to save money was to slash the level of service to unacceptable levels. Here we go again.
Your domestic data center needs the redundancy as well. Your company isn't any better off if it loses its ability to access a data center in Chicago than it is if it loses access to one overseas.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
Fair disclaimer here - I'm fishing. Chris Cannon, my beloved overlord (whom I welcome), is being challenged by Beau Babka for his seat as Utah Congressman. If you're in Utah, out of work (as over 7,000 people formerly in technology jobs are...), and have nothing to do next wednesday, please contact Jeff Bell at Babka's campiagn http://www.beaubabka.com and lend a hand. Chris Cannon... he sucketh brotheren. Sucketh almighty.
Outsources has been about the best thing that corporate management could have hoped for. During the Internet boom, techies had upper management by the balls. Now they only have to mention the word outsourcing and all the techies go scurrying back to their cubicles in fear.
Fear is a tactic used by corporations to keep employees in line and working for low wages. Don't let all the hype get you down. Be smart and make yourself useful at your company. Companies need smart people. Outsourcing is not going to change that.
TODO: come up with a clever sig
Your assertions that immigrants are taking all of our jobs are backed up with references to a political web site that advocates curtailing immigration. How shocking!
0 1 - just my two bits
I seem to recall from the heydays that Walmart used to put on a PR saying "Made in U.S.A."
What happened to that?
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I think one thing missing here in the U.S. is the unavailability of education. When I was growing up, you were either "in" or "not". Those that were "in" had their life before them, college was paid for, etc. for the "not"s like me, you didn't really think about going to college, because you couldn't afford it. Why exert yourself, when you can't gain anything. Besides, selling drugs and getting high were within reach. I always remembered hearing that in Europe (Germany?) education was free as far as universities go. If that is the case, and you dreamt of being an engineer, you could become an engineer if you applied yourself. Money wins. If you can't become a nuclear engineer, you can always buy one. Money talks and bullshit walks.
- it's dark over there right now and all the programmers are all tucked away in bed dreaming dreams of python function calls.
Um, if they were Real Programmers, they'd consider working at 2 am totally normal.
The problem with programmers in the US is that, during "normal" working hours (especially the afternoon), they're almost totally non-productive, because that's their usual sleep time.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
http://bioclox.bot.biologie.uni-tuebingen.de/Html_ we/Buch/current/node53.html
A prey population without preditors will grow until the food supply is exausted, then their population will crash suddenly. Preditor populations grow slowly in comparison with prey populations.
-Phantom of the Operating System.
Most Indian H1B Visa holders get jobs through "consultants".
Consultants are almost always other Indians who have got contacts for projects from companies and have been in the US long enough to deal with the paperwork.
These guys will recruit Indian MS grad* students and give them garunteed jobs. In return they will take anything from 25-50% of the salary.
Sounds innocent enough except for the gouging??
Well get this: they will garuntee anyone a job by making fake resumes ! If you have zero expereince they will put in 6 yrs and delete your MS degree! And believe it or not, you can be from any field... I've seen Mech, Chem, Civil guys who know jack shit get decent jobs. If you know crap about C# (or whatever) they will "train" you for a month or two. In some places, you'll also be trained about your ficticious earlier job and learn to dodge questions.
What if you screw up in the job? Well the company can fire you, but sometimes the contract makes that difficult and in any case the consultant always gets money.
How do I know all this ? I've see this happen RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES in the past one year that I've been in the US. I dont know how much of the job market belongs to consultants, but in my East coast Univ, 99% of the 50 odd Indian students will get a job like this.(Again, regardless wether they have knowledge of computers or are from other fields). Same thing in my neighbouring Univs.. even Upenn, PHL.
H1-Bs live here, pay taxes, rent, mortgages, etc. and help the economy to grow. They are often on the road to permanent residency and becoming a part of U.S. society. It costs an employer money to sponsor an H1-B and they have to pay at least the prevailing wage so there is no advantage for a U.S. employer to hire one unless he/she provides skills not available locally.
When my company looks for software developers, only a very small percentage of the resumes that we look at are remotely qualified. The bottom line is we need to hire the best possible talent and, if we are looking at two candidates, one local and one H1-B, the choice is simple -- we pick the one who is best qualified for the position. Period. That is how we are going to succeed as a business -- by hiring the best talent from the widest possible pool.
(Posting as AC because I am currently working for a U.S. company on an H1-B visa and my job includes managing an offshore team in India...)
There are programmers in Romania, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, Phillipies, and many other places. India will NOT get all the jobs, and if their pricing does not stay competitive with these other places, India will lose market share also. In addition, are you talking about Bangalore or other parts of India. There are Senior Programmers in other parts of India making $120 USD/month. So in reality, project managers will have even more choices of where to find quality programmers. More will go overseas, yes. But will it all fall into the hands of one group, I doubt it.
I was at Sam's Club the other day buying some groceries. After checking out, I put the receipt in my wallet like I always do. As I'm exiting, the receipt checker person asks to see my receipt. I fumbled for the receipt while trying not to drop my groceries. She pissed me off by saying in a condescending way, "Maybe next time you'll remember to keep your receipt out!" I said, "Ya, I've got a very good memory. That's why I make more money than your store manager by programming computers for a living."
I agree. Bang on. Exploration in learning is not really encouraged..as in the US...
No... even when you are doing the design and code yourself, when you finally get to coding, you find that some things in the design cannot be done in the way the design specifies -- so you code it up and if you get a chance go back and change the design specifications later.
Wrong again my friend. USA Today is not behind the times, USA Today was paid to run that story by a PR firm hired by India's IT lobby NASSCOM!
Silicon Valley is dying because of imported labor.
1998 == No imported workers - economy booming
2004 == 2.3 million imported workers - 'For Lease' signs everywhere.
You figure it out.
Even an MBA can drive around in his Mercedes and realize that times were much much better when Americans were running IT. Indian labor is killing Silicon Valley. It is absurd to think that a country which cannot even raise itself out of 3rd world conditions can improve the greatest country on earth. It's all PR - that's all it is.
Wipro has a 64% client turnover rate. Indian IT is on the rocks. Hence they have to pump up the PR volume to keep getting business. This USA Today is story is that PR. Just bide your time American Programmer - India's days are numbered and soon you will be back in the driver's seat where you belong.
Perhaps except that a lot of the code we write is on the fly....Management doesn't even knwo we do it...
what?
The less your population knows about technology, the easier it is to control them with it. Especially if they cant hack it.
Soon the aliens will _actually_ land for the _first_ time and take over the world with the US Military.
In case you wonder why they dont just use their own armies and weapons, it is because their weapons are biological organisms that disolve like slugs when they encounter too much CO2. Not to mention, the aliens support the draft issue and killing the US soldiers will allow that to pass with domestic support.
There is more but I must save some truth, absolutely.
in case bush wins again, right wing employers will prefer these seldom us-proggers and yall have a secured future
Does anyone else think that this attitude will affect our national security. How safe can our systems be when they are programmed by foriegners and then implemented in our nations government...
seems like a problem to me.
Its like the US will not permit not US MADE parts in any of our ICBMS.. but we can put indian made software right on our naval ships???? WTF
That US education is getting dumber by the year has been one of my rants for a long time since I was once an architect and team lead who interviewed and recommended for hire. I could barely find recent US grads who could think let alone show up regular. I was glad to have older IT workers and HR-1Bs to get critical projects done. My best experiences have been with Taiwanese who have outshone the Chinese mainlanders by fact of better education, better life style, and greater motivation. No iron rice bowl in Taiwan.
Too lazy to create a sig...
Yes, that's very true -- even a data center a couple of miles away needs to have redundant power sources and communications at least.
:-(
Sometimes even due diligence on the part of the company owning the data center isn't enough, though.
I still remember the incident at NWA where the airline was paying for redundant fiber connections between the computer center where the mainframes lived and the operations center (SOC) where most of the users were, but the communications company they contracted with decided to put the two fiber lines in close proximity to each other.
It only took a single backhoe to cut through both fibers and cause a major outage.
In that case, the folks in the SOC who needed access to the mainframe system were able to jump in their cars and cross the river to use our (the programming staff's) terminals.
Try doing that with the data center located halfway across the planet!
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Cheney is Grand Moff Tarkin, Bush is Darth Vader, Karl Rove is Emperor Palpatine, the WTO is the Trade Federation. And John Edwards is JarJar followed by John Kerry as R2D2... =)
Are you intolerant of intolerant people?
Much more than one dude, there are dozens of auto plants in Arkansas, Mississppi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and other states...
One possible solution here is to develop a new language which has built-in encryption of some kind or another, which is not exportable. Like compiled executables would be encrypted or whatever. Then you can't outsource those programmers because it would violate the export laws of the USA. Just one possible solution to keep the American programmer workforce running strong.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
Your experiences are valid and telling. Learning things by force teaches you facts without understanding (Taiwan). Learning things by exploration (America) teaches you to think. As a result, many Taiwan trained individuals have great fact recall with very little creativity and many American trained individuals are very creative but without knowledge or motivation. A well rounded education includes both of these ingredients and a few more.
We home school. One of my children is slow on math, so we focused on her strengths, art, literature and writing. We included math, but at a slower rate to avoid burnout. As she matured, we ramped up math and she zoomed up to her age level, but with the maturity to tackle that which is more difficult. One of our children was slow on reading, so we focused on his strengths, math, history, and sports. Though he didn't crack the "reading code" until 8 1/2, he is now (at 10) reading at a high school level (and he's still great at his other subjects.) Our other child just plods along (at a very diligent and fast pace) in all subjects. We havn't been able to stump her yet! With each child, we focus on strengths, keep the weaknesses growing, and use memorization as a tool where appropriate.
To sum this up, each child must be taught as an individual, leaning to strengths to build maturity, drilled on facts to enforce brain capacity and recall, and taught to think and understand "why" on every plain. This approach has given my children a great sense of ability. It has also given them an understanding of what they are capable of and what they want to do as adults. They are confident leaders wherever they go because they learned that weaknesses in a particular subject does not mean that they are stupid. They know how to leverage their strength and improve their weaknesses (if necessary!) No, they are not perfect, but they can choose a career/college path that they CAN succeed at.
The outsourcing delimma is as much a product of the internet boom as a poor education process. The internet is the new level playing field for the world. To compete WE have to get up off of our duffs and make a difference. It's not us against them (except in war) anymore. If you see a dead end ahead of you turn off that dumb TV and PS2. Study a new market. Find something to manufacture that will make a difference in someone's life. Reeducate yourself. I have spent the last 4 1/2 years mostly unemployed because I WAS a "high-end" computer consultant. When our market started crashing in '99/'00 I didn't follow the advice that I just gave. In this time period I have learned volumes on how to develop and qualify a business idea and turn it into a viable plan. I have also learned a lot about investors and their quirks. I'm not there yet, but I should have a thriving business soon. If the light at the end of the tunnel starts blowing a train whistle, reengineer yourself before you have to do it without pay (that really stinks!)
On another note, as the "3rd world" or "developing" countries continue to grow their economies, their labor costs increase. Eventually, as the world comes up beside us in expertise and quality, our prices will look more favorable again. Jobs will eventually come back, though maybe in 20 years.
"It's good to see that President Bush's plan to stimulate the economy is working so well."
No prizes for guessing where this journalist's sympathies lie. This blatant bias makes the whole article a little harder to swallow.
Vsprint wrote:
Do you really expect an American CEO to ever admit the multi-million dollar bonuses s/he recieved were based on a mistake?
Sure CEOs won't admit that offshoring their IT was a mistake but they can't keep making those mistakes forever. Offshoring will fall out of fashion along with all other management fads.
Offshoring and outsourcing are inherently bad for business*. Anybody on the ground level knows this. And these people are tomorrow's CEOs.
* A few reasons:
-
Outsourcers don't answer to the same shareholders as their client. When
"maintenance typically consumes 40 to 80 percent (average, 60 percent) of software costs" it's not exactly in an outsourcer's interests to provide maintenance-free software.
-
Having software engineers onsite boosts productivity no end. When it is in the interest of those programmers to build the system correctly (ie, not outsourced), they can guide the customer's requirements when typically the customer does not really know what s/he wants.
-
"Given a choice between paying $1 million per year for a team of 20 average developers or paying $1 million per year for a team of three outstanding developers, I'd choose the small team every time. The added bonus is that the
hidden overhead costs are much smaller with the smaller team - another benefit of using outstanding developers." This kind of advice has been around for decades and it's still as true as it ever was.
-
Contract negotiation is expensive. Litigation is even more expensive. It's cheaper to just get programmers who are aligned to your interests.
There are dozens of other good reasons but I am starting to get hoarse shouting...--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
I helped develop a intranet website that cut the amount of time it took to handle customer service calls.
:)
When it was put into production, it caused people to get laid off too.
So don't use computers or web ordering. Get on the phone and place your orders with a real person.
Or you might cause them to be laid off too.
Oh, by the way. I got laid off of that job too. Maybe it was karma.
Maybe as programmers we should implement systems that make things take more time instead of less.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
Programmers weren't the first to go, and they won't be the last!!!
By saying American businesses shouldn't work with Indians, you're effectively saying that they should be kept poor. Maybe you see other ways to help them develop, but I doubt any are as good as free trade.
Some individuals will suffer, yes but MORE won't (firing one American can enable a business to hire 5 Indians for example). Also, suffering is relative. Which would suck more? To be unemployed in America or India. I'd choose America. Of course, that's not the real situation. It's probably more like: which is worse, to have to work at WalMart for minimum wage in America, or to have to work in a trash dump making as much money as you can dig up?
I'm not suggesting we make everyone in the US unemployed. That would most definitely not be good for the world. I'm suggesting that America losing 100,000 software engineering jobs, and Indians creating 1,000,000 can be good. It's a net of 900,000 people with new jobs.
Of course, it's not as simple as this. For free trade to work, it has to really be free. That means those million employed Indians have to be free to buy rice from Americans. If the Indian government is doing something to stop that, then that's the root of the problem, not outsourcing.
I agree with you on the environment and worker protection issues too. Any American business should have to ensure that all of its workers (both local and outsourced) are treated with American standards. The US should also lobby other Governments of the world to meet high standards for the environment and human rights. Again, this is a different problem then outsourcing, and blocking outsourcing doesn't solve the problem.
There are other problems with outsourcing. Let's say a company makes toasters, and the end up outsourcing all of the development of the toaster to India and just skim all of the profits for themselves. In a free market, how long will it be before some company in India decides that they don't need the American company and starts making their own line of toasters? Not long I'm sure. So yes, outsourcing can be suicide for a business. Outsourcing with uneven regulation can be bad for a whole nation. But if that's the case, fix the regulations.
Am I the only one who thinks "become self employed" doesn't stop someone from being a programmer?
Or does that mean that accountants/lawyers/doctors/etc without partners(cabinet of one, i.e. becoming self-employed) aren't accountants/lawyers/doctors anymore?
Please, the workforce is evolving towards more self-employment, for the same reason that off-shoring is popular. The reasons are thusly:
1) Self-employed, and off-shored, are directly tied to the work, and to work performance
2) Much less employment rules, and with much less income-related paperwork. Mostly, it's the contracted party's problem more than the contractual's problem(and if the US wants to fight offshoring so much, why don't they just mandate parity of work conditions between contracted and non-contracted, you'll see the contracted ranks shrink like butter in sunshine)
3) Self-employed are never unioned after all. And firing a contractual when your budget runs out is certainly easier than firing an employee. That gives employers flexibility. Contractuals also work from anywhere with a lot less fuss than an employee, you ever seen a contractual need relocation assistance?
It's the future, unless the governments actually get their act together, and realize offshoring, and self-employments, are being used to route around inflexible(and not-so-advantageous too) workplace regulations. Just like tax shelters are used to route around tax laws.
Our company [which I will not mention, sorry] invested $100,000,000 in outsourcing software development to Inda a little over a year ago.
So far, we have received nothing in return. As a matter of fact, we don't expect to get anything in return and are waiting for the CTO to pull the plug once again.
You see, the exact same thing happend in 2002 (at $5,000,000) and 2003 (at $25,000,000).
The executives of the company must be doing this for tax purposes or something like it. It can't possibly be for ROI.
My personal experience with India over the past 9 years with three different companies tells a similar story. Whatever the hype is about India must be hidden in the details somewhere.
Because we have several decades of experience, American software engineers (government employees excluded, sorry) are by far the most productive, innovative and adaptable in the world [this is a fact].
We also get the job done! Sure, our schedules slip (an average of 2% for each 1 year duration) once in a while, the important thing to note is that our products ship and make money! Something India can't do today - and may never be able to catch up.
It would be more cost effective to ship executive jobs over seas. After all, they suck up the corporate money in salaries, bonuses and dicresionary spending (bashes) and produce no product to sell - they are the silent liability to any company's success.
Of course, this is just my opinion - I could be wrong.
-MerkX
20/20 or 60 minutes ran a store on it and found out that walmart was lying. Hell walmart was running the exact same campaign in Mexico that said Made in Mexico on the exact same goods which were all made in China.
They fucking suck
Well, Also Ericsson was curious about outsourcing so they went for it, hammer and tong. They even outsourced purchasing to a supply company that promised (surely) that they would keep watertight compartementalised that part and the rest of the company that was going to sell components to Ericsson.
Right. So spool forward about 5 years. Management had given themselved obscene bonuses but products were full to the brim with bugs and misfeatures. And were late to add insult to injury. Design was tragic. All in all Nokia left them in the dust.
Another year forward and Ericsson was so deep in warm poo that the entire Swedish national budget took a hit due to enormous job losses.
Basically design relied on manufacturing but the management had let the company rot from the core and outwards, even design went offshore.
So we do know the cost of outsourcing. Just ask Ericsson. Or what remains of it.
It is, of course, a bit premature to assume that India will get 100% of the world's IT work. There are balancing factors involved; Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" will eventually grow tired of pushing and pulling IT jobs across the oceans. But not for decades, I think.
Sam died.
Shit better not happen!
"The reason many developers in the USA are halfwits is because IT positions in the USA command huge salaries, so a lot of people who had no aptitude for it got into the game just for the money. The same will be true of every country you end up outsourcing to -- you may get high quality people to begin with, but the competition for people will result in high demand, just like here, and the halfwits over there will realize that they can fumble their way thorugh a half-assed training program and bounce between contracting firms too quickly for anyone to realize what idiots they are. Just like here 4 years ago."
Gee, that's an awful lot of faith in what's essentially a guess.
Maybe they're halfwits because aliens have invaded their bodies, or it's all a diabolical plan to takeover the world.
IT is more than development. When I got out of school in 2003 with a degree in Computer Science I knew that I was not going to become a developer despite good grades, expericence and a positive attitude. I started looking for alternative positions where I could use my knowledge: technical support, system administration, etc. Now I do enterprise technical support and I am fairly satisfied with it.
As job markets evolve, so should our careers. I predict that the U.S. will have less development jobs in the future; however, the IT is not going to go away. We will have more competition and different jobs to compete for :) Let's take a look at B2B support for example: people will have to install and configure complex software, assist high-end architects and developers with integration and maintain networks; there you go. I suspect that soon customer support will become a major issue as software becomes more complex. There will be a market for knowledgeable support techs who can travel around the country and assist in development of custom solutions (that is what my company does already). Then you will have a need for system integrators that will adapt that "imported" software to the needs of U.S. customers . I know many companies that do that already. In the end you'll end up with a less stressful job and more time to code on your own.
And if you miss coding, why do you not invent a cool Open Source project and work on it? Also, you can program on your own if you must do it for personal satisfaction.
I would have said that John Edwards was R2D2 to Kerry's C3PO....certainly would have gotten the verbosity right.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I would think in our current state of xenophobia, that exposing more and more of the code base used to support our economy would not be something the government was encouraging or even allowing. Not that I want them to sensor our coding, but it is odd.
"...so you code it up and if you get a chance go back and change the design specifications later...."
What a luxury! In the FAA regulated world, you have to get the specifications and design changed before you can make physical corrections. Or, as an expensive short cut, document the changes in a FAA approved way then make the physical changes but it's mandatory that you correct those specs and designs in a traceable manner either in a given time frame or prior to delivering the product (depends on what you're changing).
will take on new meaning.
To anyone who is considering a programming career - you would be wise to enter some other field.
It's amusing to read some of the Slashdot posts about "Tool X" or "Tool Y" or "Book on Z" but in the end it's about business.
Most managers don't really care that you used the adapter design pattern or perhaps your ultra-slick use of Apache's mod_rewrite.
In the end it's about business and the IT field in many ways has become a lot like the electricity powering your television - a basic commodity.
One of the only promising jobs in tech are perhaps network engineers and offshoots related to this... because after all, someone has to man, diagnose, install this physical crap and companies do need SOME physical presence - corporations are not going the "pure virtual" route.
But if you're a programmer and you think you're immune and you don't work for the government (the whole clearance thing), forget it, chances are good that in 5 years some portion of what you do or ALL of it will be eliminated as a result of continued consolidation in software categories, further commodization of technology and/or offshoring and/or any combination of these.
When I started my career in 1991 many companies were trying to outdo each other on technical prowess alone. Go back to what I said earlier, namely that your manager doesn't care about your use of the visitor design pattern or use of Apache mod_rewrite - businesses care about business, that is, making money. It sounds trite and oh so obvious but it's easy to forget this. Business people really don't care about Windows' heavily reliance of multithreading vs. the classic *NIX mechanism of forking or GNOME vs. KDE or Windows vs. LINUX or Windows vs. Macintosh.
THEY DON'T CARE. Really, they don't. It's about money. End of story.
Having said that, there is no reason for businesses to continue to pay sky high prices for skills they can get elsewhere at a fraction of the cost.
With globalization and the increased communication bandwidth the Internet has brought we have these two feeding off each other and the process will only accelerate.
-M
Well, I have been a scientist though exclaiming IAAP (physicist) doesn't seem that hot when salary is not enough to pay off student loans, is it.
Moreover Chinese students have been more or less blackmailed to accept halved salaries (so the prof. can get two reaserch assistants for teh price of one) which many did so they could avoid returnig to China immediately after finishing their PhDs.
Now many of them have returned to China with the new more open political climate (I didnæt say open, just a little more open than it used to be) and they can keep a good lifestyle on even less salary. As poster stated elsewhere the lasws of nature is the same in China as in the US.
So expect China to become hot in R&D, particularly in bio and genetics.
I'm wonder if many of the unemployed programmers are making good use of networking and job searching skills.
/.) and actual people skills. I'm tired of all these "top-notch" people moaning about sitting on their couch when I see plenty of just barely capable people surrounding me.
You assume that the unemployed programmers have networks (other than
To prove the theory and track this trend, the trick is coming up with a good metric to measure "availability and quality of education per capita". Something like:
(E + S*R*(100-I)*K) / P
E = weighted sum of universities by international ranking
S = average salary
R = average annual raise %
I = average inflation %
K = arbitrary constant
P = population below retirement age
I'm sure staticians have tried to calculate something like this before; I can't think of any offhand.
Anyway, my main point is this: education is already getting better in India, and eventually, if the outsourcing trend increases, India's education institutions will surpass the U.S.'s. This process may take decades or centuries, but it will happen if outsourcing continues.
Frankly, I'm wondering why the main links into India aren't under a constant DDoS. I mean, with tons of programmers out of work and the (at least perceived) cause being India...
You are the only one making sense in this whole debate. If you look carefully you will see that only some outsourcing projects are successful.
But the suits are following a trend blindly. The danger is that by the time they find out that 80% of outsourcing doesn't work it will be too late. They will have destroyed the US industry.
Then of course jobs will be bid up, students will be attracted to the field and the cycle will begin again.
I am usually against government intervention but I do feel in this case the government should step in and limit the amount of programming that goes overseas.
For national security reasons if nothing else. Course neither of the candidates is addressing the problem.
Community college is a good solution if you're laid off from a manufacturing job. But not a good one if you're a fifty year old programmer with two degrees.
Man Holmes
The sign that says made in the USA is made in china. Free speech rights apply to corporate individuals.
Even the US flags sold at Walmart are made in China. Disgusting.
http://saveie6.com/
I live in Mexico. Here you can't get a PHP job without a decent pay.
Most of the companies are hiring JAVA programmers. And of those there aren't many around.
So what do we have? UNEMPLOYMENT.
So unemployed people end up going to the US because AMERICAN companies start overmarketing their products to other countries.
Sounds familiar?
"worked at WALMART where I shot the shit with a bunch of aerospace engineers who worked there."
just because they said they were "high" all the time doesnt mean they were involved in aerospace.
maybe your just not as hireable as you think you are?? nah that cant be it, must blame EVERYONE else. your sig kind of sums it up.
You shredded the source code? I would think running a disk drive through a shredder would make quite a mess of both.
I've asked before
"Why is it the responsibility of the US government in general, and the american people specifically, to do what other governments can't do? Take care of their people. Shouldn't Mexico be the one setting up conditions that favour it's citizens having a living wage? What about all the rest?"
Also to add, please show examples of other countries "caring about us".
Yes, something like that.
All my friends who came from Tawain, HongKong or other parts of Asia so totally kicked ass in Grade 11, Grade 12 and even 1st or 2nd year of university.
Mostly because they had all done it before and they had really good study skills and habits.
Come the final years, it was no longer all rosy because something like what you said. When you start from almost ground zero, we're all human and anyone who's gotten that far has pretty much the same capacity for learning.
The problem with US (and North American in general) education system is that it is WAAAY too easy on the kids. Kids are smart, they'll learn if pushed, but nobody here pushes them.
I developed incredibly bad study habits (technically, I started school in HK, but I've been here long enough to know the school system elementary on up) because I was reasonably bright, so I got almost straight A's without doing anything because everything was too damned easy. That sucked. That came back to bite me later in university.
If US wants "the lead" back in tech. it has to start in elementary school and parents can't be scared of pushing their kids or making it a little tough for them.
What I really mean is that you should work on a project of your own, possibly with a friend, so that you keep your skills up-to-date. Then you can put something on your resume without lying, and you'll have something to talk about at interviews.
I totally agree that the trades and "blue collar" jobs will always be viable. On the other hand, like everything else, I think they'll change with the times. As technology progresses, for example, I forsee the whole profession of long-haul and short-haul trucking going away. Right now, we have to hire truckers simply because we don't have good enough artifical intelligence systems to drive a vehicle safely in traffic from one point to another.
If we reach a point where sensors are embedded in all of the major roadways though, driverless trucks will probably become a reality. After all, the computer doesn't have to sleep or take breaks, and the route is pretty much pre-planned. They might even just design a special lane off to the side just for these automated delivery vehicles to use.
To those complaining about paying "$100/hr. or more!" to those in the home construction type fields, I think there's a hidden reality behind much of it. Folks handy enough with tools/carpentry + knowing the way to do things according to "code" have a very valuable way to "get rich quick". Instead of doing work on YOUR home, they can buy inexpensive homes in need of work, fix them up, and resell them at huge profits. I know a number of former handymen who woke up one day and realized this, and are now semi-retired real-estate moguls.
A lot of the guys out there are trying to stash away enough cash at their trade to buy that first home to remodel/repair and break free of working for other people.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
Wherever I see a discussion about outsourcing, the basic premise of venting is, Indian/Chinese software developers produce crap, and american SEs produce high quality code. Keeping aside your "feelings" about outsourcing, don't you think that's wrong? I mean, look at the demographic of all the silicon valley companies (Yes, I work at one of them). Probably 70-75% of them are non americans. Does that mean, the same person produces better code, architects better systems just because he is in silicon valley? Get Real!! Because of the volume of SEs India/China produces, you are more likely to see a guy writing crap. But if you take the ratio of good SEs and Bad SEs, it's probably same everywhere!! So get real, and try to find a different solution for the problem rather than screaming "Stop Outsourcing"!!. Read the book Who moved my Cheese to get a perspective.
And if global warming really comes to pass, the grass will grow all that much faster.
...the same sources are reporting the tragic death of BSD.
As long as things change, he can keep writing and selling more books!
Well i'm just writing from my experience.
It seems to be accepted here than when you are dialing indian extensions you have to try a couple of times before it will connect.
Phone calls have very high latency, and are often echoy.
I haven't hit any of these problems connecting to people in japan or singapore. In fact ping times to japan are less than half that of india.
I see no good reason why it has to be that way - but it is for me and it makes my job difficult once in a while.
how would becoming a Prime Minister help?
Silicon Valley is dying because of imported labor.
1998 == No imported workers
Badly off, and racist to boot. TiE (tiesv.org) was founded in the Valley in 1992. Non-tech Indians (physicians, for example) were here earlier.
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
Does anyone actually take what they read in that newspaper seriously?
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
I have two people on my team from Rio, one in country being trained in by the person whose job their taking, the other still in Rio because of Visa problems. If development dips maintenance work will drop to two domestic (me and one other) and the two Rio folks. Not long after that I'm sure they'll say "let's just manage it from Rio" and boom I'm out the door. We're a small location in a big company, but they won't pay relocation to places that need people (HR types figure it's cheaper to get locals off the street). I can hang my contractor shingle back up or relocate with another company that picks up the tab, but it's pretty clear the there won't be many (if any) domestic technical types for big companies. Large companies are too brain dead to understand the difference between technical skills and the ability to apply those skills to a business problem. You can teach monkeys to code, they proved it during Y2K. Translating a business need into code is different, and requires knowledge of the company processes and the culture where that company resides, things that offshore programmers don't have. I know that experience first-hand from some time in Pakistan. We didn't know their culture or processes, so even though our team was technically skilled we did not have the best ways to solve their problems. You can get that ability over time, but time costs money, and companies value money more than people or their skills. To them one person with 5 years VB, 5 years Java, or n Years myLang are the same as any other. Interchangable as car tires. Executives are the only ones that think "their" experience in "running companies" is appropriate and work being paid for. In reality, I'll end up hanging the shingle up and taking a big pay cut for long enough to restablish a customer base or product to sell, but it's tempting at this point I'm about two steps away from saying "screw it" and doing grunt work like lawn care which all I need to learn is Spanish. Facing the inevitable may be better, since the profession I enjoyed really sucks now.
So, let's go with that in the context of "the extinction of the American programmer" and ask ourselves what the real cost of reproduction is for American programmers vs programmers from societies where programmers have marriages arranged with women of comparable educational and socioeconomic background with extended family support (frequently with someone in the extended family providing food direct from the clan's farm) for children.
Societies like India.
You can rest assured that the more an American excells at programming the lower his odds of reproducing are for the simple reason that no matter where he works he is in a male saturated environment with a high cost of living. A very very few make it really really rich and have a couple of kids, yes. Maybe there are a few Orthodox Jews, Mormons or traditionalist Catholics and have some cultural protections of their fertility.
But on the whole, the last cohort of engineers to have any sort of reproductive success were those that were born before 1950 and were therefore in a position to enjoy affordable real estate in combination with being in a position to ride the shockwave of the baby boom which came just after they were positioned to avail themselves of all that cheap labor (and nice nubile female fertility).
If you go to a typical office on Wall Street or Madison Avenue or some law firm in Washington D.C. you will find professional men who are just as dedicated as the most dedicated programmer -- with a huge difference: They are surrounded by young fertile women. New York City has one of the highest female to male ratios in the world.
There's a eugenics program going on in the US alright -- or should I say pogrom.
Seastead this.
in the source!
Funny how teachers and others with low education make no profit, but can make 50K within a few years. While I can actually make a company money, but because I want six figures they aren't interested. If your looking for someone at 70K that will make you 700K you are looking for the young and dumb. Screw you. I will continue running my own business for peanuts instead of working for theives that send my job over seas, and give jobs to the unprofitable * (unionized, government, and subsidized).
Oops. Text-to-digits mental conversion error. Now I know how W fealt when he mis-added up the budget deficit :-) Sorry guys.
Table-ized A.I.
The number 0 did not come from India. Even if you'd like to share some research on it I can find research that says it comes from a variety of locations. Just hit up google. The real truth to the matter is the origins of 0 are unknown. And despite 0, a numbering system employing 0 as a blank to increment the system (in this case by a base of 10) is more important. For example, if you really wanted to argue 0 was important, you'd also have to point out how the Chinese created a character that meant nothing (an artificial 0). In mathematics that predates whatever 0 you are talking about. The base 10 system was also NOT developed in India. So in the end, I have no idea what you are talking about. Perhaps your countries history is a little slanted, not unlike S. Korea (where children learn that the inventors of the sword, folded steel, gun powder, and the battery were in fact Korean).
If you are wondering about the Korean "history" issue, there was no written language at an early enough time to record certian historical events. A council created the Korean written language, and then another council created a written "history". With no previous written history, they were able to put a little play on history in general. Looks like India has a similar phenomenon.
A note about the Pell Grants he talks about: they are automatic, not something that is "expanded" deliberately by a president. You become eligible for Pell Grants once your income falls below a certain level.
Wouldn't raising the "certain level" count as deliberately expanding the Pell grant program in a desirable way?
I guess that ANYONE can write ANYTHING and still get it published!
And there's your new job, post-programming : hacking up tech-BS for some newspaper.
I work in a hospital and our Xrays are read by doctors in Australia, were in PA. Cant wake up the doctors, duh...
Where are the fertile females in over supply and where are they in under supply?
If you find they are in undersupply in the places where most of the engineering jobs are, it doesn't matter whether every last engineer gets married and has children: There are tradeoffs that mitigate against his having high quality offspring compared to a male with a wide array of choices in his area.
Seastead this.
[fiction]
I am a manager at a small but fast growing company making widgets. I share a cube with my programming team. Except they're not really there. I switch them on at the start of the day, and off again at night.
One wall of my cubicle is a giant LCD screen. One poke of the power button, and I am looking at 3 guys half a world away, and they are looking at me, just as if we were really there. HDTV resolution, 30 frames/sec and life-size images make it difficult to tell from reality. The sound quality is superb too; in full stereo, of course. Add to that real-time document sharing on another HDTV screen, and you come to see why many of the world's airlines are on the verge of bankrutpcy, and can no longer depend on business travelers paying high fares to subsidize the vacation travelers. Nobody travels for business any more.
We collaborate all day long. They even take their meal break when I'm taking my lunch break. At the end of the project, I am as familiar with their work as they are. The quality is up to standard. The inevitable problems that came up were resolved instantly, in real time. We shake virtual hands, turn our screens off, and the purchasing department wires them the money instantly via International Business Paypal.
Tomorrow, they will be working on someone else's project, and I will be planning my next project. There is no ongoing 'preferred supplier' relationship - it was a straight online bidding process. They came in the cheapest, and had good feedback, on International Business eBay, the online business marketplace on steroids that evolved from the original eBay. I can't even remember what country they were in.
[/fiction]
This type of scenario will be a reality one day. How long it takes, who can say. But today, the bandwidth is not there (especially in developing nations), and the technology is not there. YET.
Basically, human beings would much rather be face to face with someone than talking via phone and email. Until true telepresence technology is perfected, there is going to be a market for programmers in the USA. And there will always be projects that are too confidential or have other reasons they have to be done on site, in which case they won't be outsourced overseas. Period.
That doesn't mean that we US programmers have nothing to worry about. We need to keep our skills sharp, look at what complementary non-technical skills we can arm ourselves with, live below our means (so we can get some savings behind us), and be flexible about moving at the drop of a hat to where the work is.
We have about another decade left. If we haven't found some other way of supporting ourselves or earning a living in that time, then shame on us.
Prov.16 [18] Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
As for me, I've only been employed as a programmer for about five years. Before that, I had nothing but 'minimum wage' jobs.
Am I bitter?
No.
The time spent at those other jobs along with about eighteen plus years of ongoing education in computer programming have been put to good use.
Can you literally think the source code for a computing task, type it into the IDE, compile it, and it works or doesn't work due to a minor error?
I can.
For that, I am very grateful.
My struggle is learning new algorithms from other sources and implementing them as source code and in learning how to use new software technologies and add them to my skillset. Once these are 'mastered', it becomes a snap to add them as needed to the programs I write. Another area of difficulty is in software design. My goal is to design and write a piece of software once and only once without updating it. It is my effort to get it right the first time. The last major software project I did took about a month to finish--most of the time was spent designing the whole program for every thinkable contingency and painstaking coding and testing the modules for it. This 'craftsman' approach to programming is at odds with the 'microwave, gotta have it now' mentality of business, but I'd rather see the software I write work as designed and intended with NO side effects. I have (co-)written mission-critical software in the past--it is rather wonderful and amazing to see it run and humbling to know a business is depending on it to run correctly in order for them to operate their business.
Over time I have built up a software library of small source code modules that I can literaly fit together to create working programs in little time. Another thing I've done is taken other people's source code (available freely from the web) and created 'new' software tools by writing a new function that interfaces with the 'old code' creating a 'black box' that is easy and convenient to use. Another thing I've done is taken other peoples source code and 'strip out' the unneded parts--leaving behind the valuable, 'meaty' source code bits that can be used in programs.
As Newton said:
I am indebted to all who have helped me to be the computer programmer I am today. Thank you.
Is in the recovery phases actually. Thanks mainly to Koizumi if you ask me. The spiral is in fact over, and has been for a few years now. Ever bothered to check on CURRENT events? Simply checking the trade value of the yen versus whatever currency you deal in will reveal a lot about how the Japanese economy is doing.
targetted at programmers? Its the first I've heard of it. Pls explain!
Which defense contractor in northeast Indiana would sponsor a new Secret clearance for a recent BSCS grad who was born in the United States and has zero convictions? Do veterans get nearly exclusive priority for clearances?
I quit. Rather than work as a programmer for $12/hr, I now make about the same money doing something else, anthing else. Programming for money is about as fun as being an accountant, no thanks.
For the purposes of this I'm best described as a 'businessman' rather than a programmer, and the poster hits the nail directly on the head; it seems many people here can't see the wood for the trees.
No one's "native" on the North American continent.
By your definition, then outside of the Garden of Eden, which according to some accounts was in what is now Iraq, everyone's an Nth generation immigrant. Make of that what you will.
If you can do something better that someone else, you get the job.
If the Chineese are better at some aspect of programming that us, then it's not suprising that they get some of our jobs. There are many cases when an American is needed for an American job because they understand the requirements more and are there when you need them.
I'm 14 years old, and am an advanced php programmer and web designer. Because of this, I cam write web sites for people at much lower rates than most. Does this mean that I am "Stealing jobs"? Who am I stealing them from? The people who charge more than me for web sites? Isn't this the whole point of "Free Enterprize"? And, Yes, I am an american...
Visit my website for Free Online Classifieds, Games, and More!
http://www.allthingsinteresting.com
I work in the US division of an International company. There are several programmers in our group from India, and today several of them were talking about the situation in India. It is great for the Indian programmer. They can switch jobs and get 20-40% pay raises by working for another company. They can do this every 6 months to a year. This leads to a lack of business experience in the workers. Sure they know how to program, but they don't know the systems. Why train someone for a position if they are just going to leave in 6 months to a year?
This high demand of Indian programmers is also causing a lack of worth ethic over there. My manager was complaining that the Indians don't work very hard, because there is no incentive. Why work hard when the only thing your boss can do is fire you? If he does then you can get another job that pays as well or better? And the next person you hire will be just the same. My manager was complaining that one American was doing more work than five Indians, because they didn't apply themselves.
This manager has also been complaining for months about the communication problems with Indians. Since they live on the other side of the world, there is a one day delay for all emails. And if you want to do a conference call, you have to come in early and they stay late because there is a 9.5 hour difference in time.
Given the choice, my manager and many people I have talked to would rather pay 10 times more for a US programmer so they don't have to deal with these problems.
Problems similar to these are reasons why people are moving jobs back to the US away from India. Will this outsourcing of jobs effect me? Of course, but will I be extinct if I don't change professions, I don't see how.
Time to move up in the world.
Movies and Pizza Delivery
I totally agree that the trades and "blue collar" jobs will always be viable. On the other hand, like everything else, I think they'll change with the times. As technology progresses, for example, I forsee the whole profession of long-haul and short-haul trucking going away. Right now, we have to hire truckers simply because we don't have good enough artifical intelligence systems to drive a vehicle safely in traffic from one point to another.
You've got to be kidding.
IT, programming, and software engineering positions (along with many others) are going away as we speak.
No truck driver has to worry about being replaced by automated trucks during his lifetime. This technology will not be viable for decades at the very least. Partially because of how horrendously complex driving in city traffic is, and partially because of the enormous cost of refitting millions of miles of roadways with those sensors you talked of. Sure, people can make prototype systems with current technology that seem pretty cool, but scaling this up to become commonplace is a totally different matter.
This one can not be missed!
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
Systems delivery and maitenance work is being taken over by Indians because they are incredibly ambitious, work hard for long hours - they literaly hardly leave the office. Many strive to achieve higher positions. Once they go up and are engaged in decision process, they prefer fellow Indians to other nations.
I'm an H1B, working for some consulting company (IANAI)
Who the hell cares what USA editorial page says? anyone?
As the market tightens, reputation becomes more important. On way to get a reputation as a good designer or coder is to release some well-designed open-source code, no?
These are the best and brightest members of society - it's easier for them to retrain than for any other group in the history of free trade.
I'm fresh out of university with a BSCS, $24K of loan debt, and a diagnosed disability preventing me from doing customer service without appearing rude. How do you suggest I retrain?
Is self-employment an option to a person with a diagnosed disability that profoundly negatively affects his ability to interact with a customer?
Yes.
Personally, I find that poor requirements, fuzzy goals, and irrelevant coding standards dominate even when you sit across from the customers. Carrying this to any extreme, I don't expect it to get better as it goes overseas. So once the spaghetti runs, does it matter if it's maintainable? Especially when you're the least-bid contractor? Maybe? Regardless, I see offshored code as a guarantee of maintanance work to come. Now to learn to love the comments...
The question is where to you go instead?
Ever since 1914, the entirity first world nations have been subsumed.
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
Why should software be free and open source? Does GM tell provide you cars for free or tell you how to make a V6 out of your V4 engine? Do Coke or Pepsi provide free drinks or their secret formula for making it? Shouldn't software be like other "products"?
I don't know why people cry about a few thousand jobs outsourced. Hundreds of thousands more are lost being to quality free software provided by open source foundations. Ever wonder how many jobs will be lost if everyone switched to free Linux and stopped using Windoze?
And H-1B's are preferred by employers because are the cream of workers from countries around the world, work for lower wages, are willing to work longer hrs & are bound by tough immigration laws. What capitalist company doesn't like cheap skilled hard-working bonded labor?
By writing or supporting free and/or open source software you are paving the path to your own unemployment. Microsoft vs. Sun Microsystems, paid vs. free, employed vs. unemployed choice is yours.
News flash I'm running my own company and it's a company not a charity. I don't expect $700k out of a $70k developer but I do expect them to pay for more than what I'm paying them. Otherwise I'd be back to charity.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I'm curious as the actual cost of outsourcing.
There are too many "professional managers" at the higher levels. I.E., people who have little to no knowledge of the business at hand. This is common not just in IT-related areas.
Captain Obvious out.
If your business processes aren't covered in their code library, they will be.
Ask me about my vow of silence!
this change will occure.
programming will be out sourced.
THEN companies will realize that they aren't getting the same results (China actually cost more and does less if you don't have a gun to their head).
Programming will move back.
EVERYTHING WILL EQUALIZE WITH TIME
will you be around when it does?
will you take advantage of patterns?
i will
-Tim Louden
this all part of the "global economy" that George W's dad started and he has just picked up. The businesses will be hurt in the long run.
"Ideas, comments, suggestions? All I can do right now is work as hard as I can doing what I know for what it is worth while I can still get a job (and, as I stated before, I did find work) - and save my money, get rid of all of my debt - and hope there is a way out..."
*VOICE OF GOD!!*
Do what you must!
Seriously only you really can answer these questions. But you must know yourself (same for your wife) and each other. What do you like? What do you dislike? What are you good at? What are you bad at? What is your social situation? Your emotional maturity? Questions like that. Any course based on incomplete information is going to be bumpy at best.
Doesn't matter if you're deciding on a career, or your retirement. Once you know the above, then comes the research. Lots and lots of research. It will not give you all the answers, but at least you'll be much better prepared than when you started.
Then take your best shot and stick with it. Waffling will only hurt you in the end.
"But seriously - are there other options for people in mine or similar situations? People who have little money to spend to educate themselves on the "next thing" (what is that, anyhow?) - I can't even think of a career path that won't suffer the same or similar fate as programming, etc. Becoming a lawyer, or a doctor, or a "healthcare professional", or a biotechnologist (yeah, I have the time and money for any of those - right)?"
Don't worry about it. Time will change the titles and the players, but it will all come back to what do you feel most comfortable with. Don't forget being self-taught. Not a substitute, but a leg up from knowing nothing.
"One thing my wife and I discussed when this occurred was basically "chucking it all": Liquidating *all* of our assets, except for bare basics, buying a cheap RV, sticking the rest of the money in an account somewhere (and maybe some in an IRA) - and then becoming road hippies and travelling the continent. That would be a better life than a dead end unforgiving hateful job."
Breaking the ties that bind is always liberating. Like paying off the last of the mortgage, or student loan. Or going to the garden instead of the grocery store. Breaking as many as you feel comfortable with, gives you greater flexibility now and in the future. And in the brave new world, flexibility is going to be needed.
"I am indebted to all who have helped me to be the computer programmer I am today. Thank you."
At the sound of the beep, please leave a message.
*beep*
Seriously for you I'd recommend Smalltalk, or Forth (opposite sides of the same coin). A very organic way of doing development. Your "planning it all out" method applies to all languages, but it works better for some than others.
This was just implementation, not even design! But that's because design is never really finished, especially in the world of IT apps where business owners are constantly re-decided what it is they really want and outside pressures only make the problem worse.
What makes for an effective IT effort in my mind is where the technical folk can really understand what the business needs, and deliver that for them (or a rough approximation) instead of what they say they need. Sometimes they are not listening to themselves or paying attention to the company as a whole in the same way a good IT shop getting requests from all directions can.
Good luck with your effort but we found offshoring even with some finished design to be terribly wasteful.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think there is a big difference between branch offices in areas where labor is cheaper, and the kind of get-rich-quick scheme that is most offshoring efforts today.
I think having branch offices in other countries is helthly - if they are really employees, and the branch is treated as equals, then it can be a happy relationship for all as they care care about teh company and understand at a more fundamental level what the company needs. So I have nothing against that, or even developers from other contries - I am only irked when businesses do things liek offshoring for the stupidest and most short-sighted of reasons, without even considering if it will really work.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You have the minds of slaves. Nothing original has come out of India.
You know, that's absolutely true...well, if you discount the following picayune items:
I'm an independant consultant/programmer. My job is about 1/3 programmer, 1/3 salesman, and 1/3 workflow analyst.
I'm in no danger of losing my contracts anytime soon. From where I sit, the biggest problem programmers et al have with their respective client businesses is lack of understanding of the real needs of the end customer.
Take the time to get to really, REALLY know your target audience. Listen - long and hard, become familiar with their terminology, their concerns, their worries. Get in their minds, become, as much as you can, THEM. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Many people almost don't know what to think when somebody really, truly listens to them. Sometimes they're taken aback - but they always love it. And, when you deliver the exact solution to their needs, (even late) they will kiss your feet.
One big problem is humility - how many programmers figure they're work 6 figures, and the customer is a necessary evil? When, in fact, the customer is the point?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I'm from bangalore and I'd have to say that call quality and telecoms are not yet upto US standards.
The grandparent might be working in a big company but for many small and medium sized companies, they cannot afford 2-3 different lines and good quality backbones. They have to take what the telecoms offer(and it is not that good).
The bandwidth offered is very very costly compared to far east asian nations. International telephony is still costly to many companies.
First you stated, "bring in several times that much".
Now you stated, "I do expect them to pay for more than what I'm paying them".
I doubt the McDonald Cashier is making them much money (100k) then it is not charity. When did less than 1000% profit become required to get a job or call it charity. You idiots will lose out to competition with attitudes like that. Still you didn't say anything about unprofitable employees like those working for the government and other subsidized.
If you won't hire the unprofitable employee which in your mind is "bring in several times that much" then why do you pay taxes for such people.
Screw you. You fascist thug.
In English it used to be uncommon to end sentences with prepositions, and British grammarians railed against such a habit. This habit is an Americanism and now it is more common in English, due to their domination by American culture. Ending a sentence with a preposition is perfectly good American, but the example you are pointing out is not a full sentence. That is what is wrong, not ending the sentence with a preposition, which is perfectly good American; few Americans think twice before ending a sentence with a preposition.
Read H.L. Mencken's "The American Language" and learn son. [On purpose I ended the sentence with a preposition.]
Ok, ignore the note about ending the sentence with a preposition. I was thinking of ending the sentence with a preposition, even wrote it out that way, but deleted it and not the note about ending the sentence with a preposition on purpose.
I predict within the same time-period that American programmers are supposedly to die out will be about the same time the Indians decide they are sick of the fucking Americans changing their minds about this or that piece of the project in mid-development ;-)
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
I heard that the Swedish government's going to tax everybody's email! It won't matter, though, because Bill Gates is shutting down the Interweb anyway.
-----------------------
You are what you think.
...not because I have been burnt directly from outsourcing, but because I have over 20 rejection letters, with only 2 pending, unreplied applications.
I recently graduated with a BS in CS. I taught myself C++ 10 yrs ago, BASIC 12 yrs ago, DOS 17 yrs ago, along with much more. I am VERY experienced and know my craft VERY well, along with great creativity and problem-solving. But hiring managers seem to only want someone with team experience developing software. They really don't give a hoot about technical skills and problem-solving: they think those can be taught to anyone.
They are soooo wrong! I love programming because it is partly science and partly art. It truly is like writing a complex story or poem that must be interpretted on multiple levels (the computer(s), the programmer(s), and the end user(s) all read it completely differently, but the programmer has the power over all). It is also akin to creating a new lifeform. GOOD programmers are artists just as much as they are scientists, and even that line must move back and forth. Some things cannot be taught: nurtured, yes, but not taught.
The problem is that the majority of HR and business folk have certain ideas drilled into there heads while in college. I already touched on HR's idea that all technical matters can be taught to almost anyone. Business gets these giant screws drilled in their heads now days: laying people off is just a part of business as well as taking economic advantage of the global market by outsourcing. These two screws desensitize them and comfort them into doing what they do.
It feels like America is going to become a land of managers and burger flippers. Factory jobs have been moving out for 30 some years now, and it is not stopping. Skilled labor jobs, and even highly skilled ones, are on the rise of moving out. The only things left will be either manager type posisitions (but these too are slowly moving as MANY companies have been bought by foreign ones) or the minimum, or near-minimum, wage jobs like cashiers and burger-flippers (but as the spiral spins to its lowest depths, who could afford to buy burgers or goods?).
I LOVE America and its people, but it seems many businesses do love America, just not Americans.
Oh, I almost forgot. A HUGE thing that no one seems to focus on is the problem of immigration. China has the world's largest population, but India is outpacing China in growth. All these people have to live somewhere, and America is still, for now, pretty attractive. Large numbers of immigration our economy cannot support. It floods the job market and reduces scarcity, causing wages, including benefits, and available positions to plumit. I am all for immigration, that's what America was/is about, but America seriously needs to look at putting better limits on immigration.
I may not be an economist, but I do have a brain that I regularly use.
-JDS
Yes I am a software engineer. My company is trying to outsource all programming efforts, however because I am in Canada and the company is American, my team gets balanced on the offshore category of internal developers.
This may change in the future but for now, the IT exec are happy and so are my PM's and customers.
Although the exchange rates are getting closer, my internal billing rate is still half of that of my American counterparts.
An American company can afford 3 Indian developers for the price of an American one till the American company is making considerable profit on the targeted market. What if it is a local market?
Consider Verizon I am working for as a developer. Customers pay around 30$ a month for a basic residential phone service provided by Verizon. If you do not have a job, you will close your account. And so will your laid-off neighbor or colleague. Now, who the fuck is Verizon going to charge if no one can afford their service any more? It's not just a question of more or less competitive price, it a question of providing service for no one, i.e. zero profit.
Sooner or later that will hit not only bottom and lower levels of the corporate hierarchy, but the morons driving corporations as well.
Apart from that, as a CEO or a top manager you absolutely do not want to have desperate (and educated) people wondering around without a job. However good your private security service is, sooner or later somebody will smash your head with a bat, rape your wife or kidnap your kids (and if a criminal is smart and educated, the crime will be more difficult to investigate).
You can come up with your own samples. Say, educational institutions in US are businesses. If there is no need for highly qualified workers in US any more, who will take a hundred thousand dollar tuition loan? Now, this affects universities and banks, and goes on and on.
My manager at Verizon is absolutely frustrated about the imperative to outsource to India even if it is a trend within Verizon and directors require that. First of all, they are "far, far away", there is 12 hour time difference and no way to manage them properly. Second, their performance sucks, you pay them a third, but they are doing a third of what the "local" personnel does. And yes, those are dummy testing tasks. Forget development and access to the production system with real data
The corporate leaders of America fail or are not willing to realize the consequences of their greed. And you know what? Those 50% supporting supporting this idiot Bush, have this sort of life, you do not deserve more, but what is for the other 50% of the US population who realize that "the fortunate son" (or bastards behind him, rather) is absolutely going to fuck the country even deeper and still they cannot do anything about it?
I do not want to offend those who believe (after all, religion is not only a lot of uneducated or a matter of American tradition). But when I hear Bush saying "I pray a lot... And I pray..." during the last debates, I cannot stand it. How pathetic. Do you really pray, you, degenerate?
"the Kama Sutra"
OK, count me in...
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
By saying American businesses shouldn't work with Indians, you're effectively saying that they should be kept poor.
I didn't say American businesses shouldn't work with Indians. I said we shouldn't send our jobs over there. Am I going to fast? Should I slow down for you?
Maybe you see other ways to help them develop, but I doubt any are as good as free trade.
Free trade is a recent practice. All throughout history we've had barriers. Yet many other countries have managed to develop themselves. Why do you think India cannot do the same?
Some individuals will suffer, yes but MORE won't (firing one American can enable a business to hire 5 Indians for example).
The question is, why should ANYONE suffer more than they do right now? Why can't we raise people without lowering others?
I'm suggesting that America losing 100,000 software engineering jobs, and Indians creating 1,000,000 can be good. It's a net of 900,000 people with new jobs.
And what evidence do you have to support your claim that business would hire 10x as many Indians and not just let the CEO's pocket the savings?
I agree with you on the environment and worker protection issues too. Any American business should have to ensure that all of its workers (both local and outsourced) are treated with American standards. The US should also lobby other Governments of the world to meet high standards for the environment and human rights. Again, this is a different problem then outsourcing, and blocking outsourcing doesn't solve the problem.
No, that is exactly the problem with outsourcing. You can pay them less because their country has fewer protections so it is less expensive.
There is no lobbying in this. If a country does not meet our minimum protections, then there is no "free trade" with them.
There are other problems with outsourcing. Let's say a company makes toasters, and the end up outsourcing all of the development of the toaster to India and just skim all of the profits for themselves. In a free market, how long will it be before some company in India decides that they don't need the American company and starts making their own line of toasters? Not long I'm sure. So yes, outsourcing can be suicide for a business. Outsourcing with uneven regulation can be bad for a whole nation. But if that's the case, fix the regulations.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Look at any non-computer consumer electronics you have (TV, stereo, etc). Look at where they're made. Then look for US companies making similar products.
I'm not kidding at all, but I didn't necessarily say that trucking will disappear in our own lifetime either. Note my comment about building special lanes off to the side of the main roadways. Instead of trying to make an automated delivery vehicle deal with the complexities of traffic and the expense of tearing up al the highways and roads to install sensors in them, it would be much easier and more feasible to construct special lanes.... Think of it more like a light-rail system or something.
... but they're changing focus. I work with a guy who quit a good paying job with IBM to start his own on-site PC service business, and we're certainly not finding a lack of work out there. It just doesn't really make any sense to claim I.T. and software development jobs are coming to an end when we're just now reaching a point where more Americans have broadband connections at home than dial-up internet, and more homes have at least 1 computer in them than ever before.
We're still talking about enormous cost, but there are some strong benefits too. It should improve safety on the roads for everyone else, since it eliminates many of the largest vehicles from driving in and out of traffic with everyone else. It should improve delivery times and save on fuel costs too. (Not to mention the obvious; no more delivery drivers on the payroll.)
I.T. is in a state of transition right now, the way I see it. The jobs really aren't "going away"
What I *do* see happening, though, is larger companies learning to be more efficient with their resources. I, myself, lost a PC support job at a mid-sized firm a few years ago, mainly because they transitioned to thin client computing and automated tools to alert key people as soon as a server or network connection went down. That, combined withn an overall increase in knowledge of how to use the system on your desk as an "average employee" means less need for support staff dealing with issues at the desktop level.
Software development is going to come and go in cycles, IMHO, because we're reached a critical mass of pre-packaged applications out there. Almost anything you can conceive of needing to do with your PC already exists, for sale, someplace out there. We're past the stage of needing lots of programmers to write all of these new applications that don't yet exist. Nowdays, software development demand only "spikes" when a major new idea takes hold (EG. the internet and web design). Wiat until everyone starts really using RFID technology. I predict that'll spawn some new hiring for development jobs too.
hahaha.
So you're saying you'd hire someone is LESS profitable than the amount you're paying them?
So you hire them for $70k and they only bring in $50k... Ouch. You're going out of business.
So yes, I'm not going to hire a crappy person that isn't worth the amount.
SCREW YOU! NAZI MORON!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Where to start with this? Ignoring the inaccurate and unhelpful analogy with blacksmiths and bookkeepers (does the author really believe that nowadays we don't have people whose job it is to work with metal?), the thesis seems to be that, over time, coding is becoming more and more removed from the basic instruction set of the machine. This is hardly a newsworthy observation. No, I haven't looked at Knuth in a while, nor have I had the need for an assembler lately. Yes, over time, we are using increasingly higher level languages, but I don't think that this anything other than blindingly obvious. What next for Slashdot? "Hey look, this interweb thingy seems to be getting quite popular"? The additional thesis seems to be that, in some vague and unspecified way, AI will take over and do the coding for us. As an AI researcher myself, this is, given the state of the art (by which I mean not what AI can actually do now but what the current philosophical limits of AI are), a complete red herring. Moore's Law is no answer to the Chinese Room - a challenge that the AI community has not yet satisfactorily answered.
If you're thinking Boeing, think again. They manufacture planes, they are not an airline. What were you thinking, anyway? AFIAK, there are several airlines based in and around Seattle and plenty more with offices here. Alaska airlines, Horizon airlines, Northwest....
Sleep is futile.
Learn to read you Nazi Brain Dead Twit.
I didn't say anything about losing money. You said, "bring in several times that much". My argument is why not hire someone if they are just as profitable as the average person, and the problem with the analysis of profitability for government thugs and the like.
It's all about economics. The opportunity cost of overpaying US programmers is the innovation that they would otherwise achieve if they were not busy being code monkeys.
There is also the social side of things. Americans consume proportionatly more resources than people in india, they also have a higher standard of living. Good on India for making a fairer share of the worlds resources. I say if the off shoring is cheaper, good. Lets stop the bloated american programmers. Disagree? Whats Microsnooze and example of?
A large part of this problem is television that is increasingly marketed towards children using mind-control techniques.
It's not only parents who need to fight this, but your local, state, and federal governments. Janet Jackson's boob is big trouble for everyone in Congress, but no one seems to have a problem with the mindless drones brought up as a result of the consumerization and consumption of children by big-media advertiers, who depend on their children to nag their parents into submission. And that needs to change.
My wife is in an accounting program to become a CPA. To maintain her certification once she has it, she needs to do "continuing" education.
.Net course wouldn't be a bad idea.
If someone lost their job and can't get a new one, a few courses in one semester to gain new skills may not be a bad idea.
Look, my undergrad is CS, I can pick up a new language in a second, no question. But if I was looking for work as and people wanted Java/.Net experience, and I couldn't land a job, going to a community college for 3 months to take a Java course and a
It's NOT about getting an AA, or a BS, the world is a market economy, and you need to market yourself. If the lack of experience with a language hurts, then instead of sitting home and doing nothing, gain new skills.
The other poster mentioned that his wife has been out of work for 3 years.... While it is TRUE that most of what goes on in the business world is 30 year old computer science, doesn't change the fact that when I'm interviewing, a PhD out of work for 3 years with a chip on her shoulder wouldn't get the job, even over someone right out of school. It's about the attitude.
I'm MUCH more impressed with someone that sucks it up and takes a job "beneath" them and goes to night school to brush up on skills than someone with a PhD that thinks jobs or continuing education is beneath them.
Everyone needs to gain new skills constantly. Community Colleges are a PERFECT place to offer "vocational" classes for out of work professionals. Look, 4 year schools teaching CS are going to teach concepts, but if you work in one place for 10 years, you may miss out on what is going on in the business world. Community Colleges don't have the powerful, entrenched, academic elitsts running the show.
The junior Senator from Massachusetts DOESN'T have a plan, he has a litany of complaints. As do the posters here.
Not sure I want to fly on an airline that builds it's own planes...
There is lies the problem. The market is a funny thing, aligning interests in fair compensation. Granted, some of the skilled "surplus money" is really because of government regulation requiring licenses...
However, why is it automatic that the guy that sits at a desk designing circuits is worth more than the guy dealing with potentially dangerous amounts of voltage in old walls or a construction site?
You should make more because you have a 4 year degree and possibly a Masters?
What makes you so valuable?
So a guy in his 50s should make more money because he spent four years drinking and studying a little in college?
People with rare skills will be compensated for them.
Most engineering positions don't require rare skills.
More importantly, for skilled labor, the market is SMALL, figuring a 50 mile radius. For white collar office jobs, the market is global, and competition is fiercest.
One of the biggest problem we have in this country is that our universities feed off the public trough, paying professors to feed gibberish that makes people feel special for going to school there.
The cushy middleclass was a SHORT TERM result of certain changes, and a lot of assumptions that college -> wealth, because pre-Baby Boomers, the rich went to college.
I have no problem with electricians or others make more money than I do. I do what I think I am best at, and run with it. Create value, claim your piece of it. Don't believe that you are entitled to money because of your education, its the skills that you bring to the table and your ability to negotiate your piece that you and your family depend on.
Alex
...isn't that what every programmer does?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
of computer programming, or at least professional code monkeys.
I took my first programming class in grad school in 1967 using Fortran 64. I have learned and used a dozen computer languages over the last 37 years.
About 90% of the programming jobs in this country disappeared when the Dot.com bubble burst, and the remaining jobs has been steadily declining. To add to that, modern GUI RAD Dev tools are so simple to use that folks without programming training are using them to write useful applications, all of which are used in house. Of the seven programmers in my area one is a former CPA, one has a PhD in Math, and all but two have college degrees. The two that don't have college degrees are bright clerical workers who were trained enough to write GUI apps. They know just enough to do what they need to do. The tools do most of the work. They are paid less. When I retire my replacement, if I am replaced, will be another bright clerical worker, or some HS vunderkin who just sat in a one week coding class, followed by a refresher 6 months later.
Hardware is getting so cheap its better to replace it than repair it. Don't need a technical training to do that. Even RDBMS are getting easier to install, setup and maintain. Say goodby to IT departments, too. The lowly clerk will do it all and for barely more than minimum wage.
I will retire in less than 7 years, but by then the "Age of Programming" will be over.
I've been reading all these victimized responses along the lines of "oh poor me, I am a programmer and I have been wronged".
Give me a break.
Alright, guys, reality check:
- Programming is no longer a "luxury skill"; it is becoming commoditized, whether you like it or not.
- Commodities tend to, by definition, become low margin.
- Indians, Chinese, or whomever else that is "stealing your jobs" are really only responding to the commoditization of your trade. In essence, they are the mass-market producers. The equation still works for them, but they are not benfitting as much as you would like to think; their cost of living is increasing rapidly right now, while the wage pressures are felt over there, too. Two years ago the cost of an outsourced indian was 10% of their american counterpart; today it is 40%, and rising (both because THEY need to be paid MORE and people in the US need to be paid LESS).
For a lot of you, your cheese has moved. Just face it. If you want to stay a programmer, fine, but keep in mind that THERE IS NOW WAY THAT IT WILL EVER BECOME A HIGHLY VALUED SKILL/TRADE AGAIN. That skillset has been acquired by too many people for the cork to be put back in the bottle, so to speak. That's life.
You want to deal with it? Reinvent yourself. Security is pretty hot right now; lots of work at decent salaries. It won't stay that way for too long, but there are at least 5 more years of good time in that field. That's just an example, btw. Invent something, program it if that makes you happy, and sell it. The point is, you need to innovate - not in the sense of a product, but in the sense of YOU, the person.
The thing that sets America apart from the rest of the world is innovation. That is the secret that allows this country to keep reinventing itself every few decades and stay ahead of the bell curve. That IS a major cultural difference - and barrier. So innovate. Build on your strength. Don't keep fighting a war that's already lost. That makes no sense - and you will, without doubt, be left behind. And if you do, nobody in the world will listen to your whining.
Oh, and that thing about your degrees? Just move on. That diploma may make you feel warm and fuzzy, but if it's in a field that had little demand, it means horseshit. It does NOT matter that you went to a 4-year college, or gotten 1 or 2 or 15 masters, or a PhD or 3, unless you are trying to work in academia. You KNOW this; you all look down upon the people getting 4-year degrees in geography or politics or whatnot. Well, guess what? You are in the same boat now, or will be soon enough. Tough luck. Deal with it.
Sheesh.
This is nothing new, in fact it may be good. Some of us are wheat and some of us are chaff. The basics will always remain the same -- you get paid for the good things that distinguish you from someone else, be it skill, creativity, or dealing with end-users. If you're just a coder and nothing else, go to Vegas and play poker. You'll make more money and have more fun.
>If you see a dead end ahead of you turn off that dumb TV and PS2. crap. what would be a career that would leave plenty of screw-off time for said PS2 and TV. part of _my_ problem is I dont want to spend 80 hours a week trying to get ahead. I want to go in, do my work and go home to my girlfriend (if I had one hehe) or beer and the PS2. I always tend to choose entertainment over enlightenment.. maybe I was doomed to fall out the bottom of the IT career anyways... isn't there a good paying job for lazy people? >I WAS a "high-end" computer consultant. When our market started crashing in '99/'00 I didn't follow the advice that I just gave Same here, now I deliver pizza and can't afford to live on my own anymore. I'm trying to figure out how to get out of the dilemma but if it requires me to put 12 hours a day in plus weekend time then I may not be able to hack it. I got way used to 9-5 and 50k during the 90's and I don't like how it seems like all workplaces now expect more and pay less. where is my beer?
argh.. it stripped all my CR's out! sorry bout that folks. How do you force a line feed? I was trying to reply to someones post a couple of sentences at a time like it is common to do. ie: ---what you said and what I said about it.. lets just call this a test post and if you can untangle the above message and reply without flaming me about my lack of new lines, then good for you =)
Consider this. The number of graduates from India universities are rapidly increasing while the number of graduates that are coming out of US universities are dropping.
The top universities in India are comparable to some of the top universities in the US. The emphasis on education in other parts of the world greatly surpasses that of the US. Unlike the US (forget what the President said about Community Colleges because its BS), India wants to educate their people because they realize they can't compete without it.
The company I work for just outsourced dozens of jobs. The jobs being outsourced weren't tech support jobs either. They were Software Engineering, DBA, and SysAdmin positions.
India isn't too much different than the US in terms of wants and needs as a society. They all want and need to work to survive. Just like the good ol' people here in the US. In India there are literally thousands of applicates for a single low level tech support job. All of them graduates from India universities comparable to MIT. There are thousands of programmers and IT workers in India without jobs all wanting to do monkey work to get in the door.
With tuition in the US at an all time high and the fact that jobs are scarce in America even if you do have an education it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what is happening.
Its a shame that the US hates its own citizens to the point where the Govt. no longer wants to provide its own people with the adequate resources necessary to consume our own products. Nor do they want to take some maggot poor American and see them succeed. I'll assume they rather see Americans struggle to keep their families together. Its a warning sign when Govt. solutions involve building more jails while colleges increase their tuitons. It appears that not only do other countries hate Americans but the US also hates Americans.
After Sept 11th. I saw lots of bumper stickers that said "United We Stand" and everyone had an American flag. Funny how I don't see that anymore.
-Everyday Joe
The nazi thing was a joke. I thought it went well with your fascist statement.
The average person does bring in several times what they're making. There's other overhead besides their salary such as health insurance and unemployment insurance, etc. I wouldn't hire anyone I didn't feel was bringing in a minimum of twice what I'm paying them and I wouldn't expect to be hired by anyone unless I could do the same.
I don't know if you're 16 years old and you've never had a real job or if you're 40 and you can't find a job because you have no people skills but that's the way things work.
I'm done discussing this. If you'd like to post again you can have the last word.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Americans only have themselves to blame. They wanted to sell McDonalds and Coca-Cola to the rest of the world, so they started to Americanise the developing nations through ad campains. Then they realised they could exploit the cheap labour in these countries while they're at it. Well, these people have developed. The Nike factory workers have put their kids through college. And these kids know that it's better to be paid in US Dollars than Rupee's. So now the US must protect itself by immigration laws.
Guess what? It does not work! The South African government has tried the exact same thing between the 1960's and 1990's. They created "Pass laws" instead of "Immigration laws", but it's exactly the same thing - it kept people away! The only difference is that it was called "Apartheid", which, when translated, does not mean racism or hate, it means "keeping people apart from each other". What else does US border control do?
So I say - give them all visas! Let the best person get the job - and if he's willing to work for less, why not? All animals are equal - don't let some be more equal than others!
builds it's own planes
"its".
Yes, I was thinking Boeing. I live in Seattle and am familiar with our airlines. I have flown on two of the three mention. But what he said is "That is, I work for a large commercial airline company in Seattle and at one point was an engineer in the factory." Does NWA or Alaska really have a factory?! I assumed that "commercial airline company" was a confusingly-worded way of saying that he working manufacturing planes for commerical airlines.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
1st you say several time as much and now its twice as much. I have news for you most low wage jobs don't bring in a multiple return on investment, and most union and government jobs bring no return. Your nothing, but a flip flopping Nazi thugs that wants to hold productive people down. All I can say is Flipper Flipper Flipper.