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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
Become self employed or move to india
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/
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
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
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.
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.
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...
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
I am a republican but I had a hard time with that comment by Bush. I have been to college. I have two Masters degrees. I don't need to go to the local community college, I need a job. I have been unemployed for two months. If I could live off of a WalMart wage I'd be okay. But, I am a single dad with two kids of which I have full-time custody. I just need a decent job at a decent wage. At this point, I would flip burgers if it paid enough.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Become an electrician or a plumber. That's where the real money is made.
You can also get pretty much as a painter, but that actually requires some skill.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
Consider that all economic bills must originate in the House. Further, consider that the House is a Republican house at the moment. Thus, any bills authorizing spending would have to have strong REPUBLICAN support to pass.
Oh, and I suppose you have no good explanation why it's appropriate to simply overlook the billions upon billions that Bush has wasted in Iraq.
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.
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.
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.
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
On a side note, how many of Bush's economic advisers have resigned? Also, what president has ever lowered taxes during a major war (or any war for that matter)? Who do you expect is going to pay the bill? You can't increase government spending and simultaneously lower taxes forever.
It's called cognitive dissonance and you've got a nasty case of it.
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
Still, just because you have a lot of education - that doesn't make you immune to structural unemployment. It sucks that your skills aren't helping you find a job quickly, but that really should have been his point. Your skill set may be obsolete - and in that case you WOULD need to get re-trained. That being said, I don't know your skill set...
If it makes you feel any better, it is taking more than two months for most out-of-work people that I know to find work. I'd guestimate the average is 4-6 months in my circle of friends.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Nope. A painter is not somebody who creates works of art. That's an artist. It's a very important distinction, and it exists here too.
Even if you are told "write this", you still design the code that will perform that action.
No. You write the code that obviously must be written. It's like moving boxes around. There's no mystery, you simply need to buckle down and do it.
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.
Eh? Since when?
Tax/revenue bills are not "economic" or "spending" bills. Obviously YOU do not have a Ph.D in politics, either, nor ever read the Constitution.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
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 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.
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).
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 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?
> (Eventually, Japan might just buy the entire world
The 80's called. They want their jingoist paranoia back.
Have you seen Japan's economy lately? Lately meaning, oh, the last decade or so?
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 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.
Oh, lets be honest... the jobs paying minimum wage can't be sent over seas. They tend to be service industry jobs that need to be done on site (Walmart greeter, hamburger flipper, mailroom clerk, etc).
And the people earning minimum wage don't hoard their wealth in tax-free IRAs or tax-free municipal bonds. They buy stuff. Poor people spend, they don't save. That creates new demand, which creates new business opportunities, which creates new jobs.
It's the basis of Keynesian economics. I was fairly miffed that Kerry did so little to explain how increasing the minimum wage spurs the economy. We hear the supply-side view about the minimum wage killing jobs all the time, even though the same sorts of dire predicitions have been made for 70 years now without coming to pass.
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.
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.
I have often thought about vouchers, and every time I do, I come to the same sad conclusion. They won't work. Here is why. You take something that should be equal across class lines and turn it over to the market. Now, tell me, how well has the market worked up untill now? What I see is rich people getting even more exclusive schools that vouchers won't fully pay for, but will help absorb the cost of, and poor people getting walmart like schools where they put as many kids into a room as possible. Yes, they can take their vouchers else where, but how well has that worked for the places that we buy products from? American's buy the shittiest products they possibly can to save a buck. Sometimes they have to.
If you think for a minute that vouchers will have a long term affect, I think you're mistaken. A much more effective reform would be to turn school funding over to the feds or at least the states. As it is, you have situations where you have fantastic schools in places like East Oakland (in the hills) and some of the worst schools in the country in the reast of Oakland. Not to mention one of the best districts in the nation in nearby Berkeley. Make school funding equal, that will do much more good than vouchers.
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.
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.
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
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
And the fact that Bush hasn't vetoed a single bill since he took office is probably a pretty good indicator that the White House and Congress are working together more closely than any other in the history of our country. Maybe Bush himself doesn't have the influence to pass whatever he wants; maybe he and Congress are just influenced by the same people (Karl Rove, et al.) so their interests seem to line up, but if so that seems like a good enough reason to get rid of him anyway. What good is a leader who can't lead? If Bush wants a bill passed and Tom DeLay or Karl Rove can tell him "No", why don't we just make one of them President, so we know we have someone who can actually back his words with actions as our leader?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
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.
Yeah they said that in the Soviet Union once too. And as they neglected the general economy and dumped more and more money into defense, it wasn't too long thereafter that the soldiers and other government workers went unpaid. So your job may never be outsourced, but that's no guarantee it'll stick around either. There were a number of prominent economists who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union (almost to the year) back in the 60s. Most of them also predicted our collapse to follow 10 to 20 years after them, provided that we didn't readjust our spending patterns. Well, we've adjusted them alright, we put even more into defense. Defense spending is a bubble too. It can't keep on going up forever and it's already had a drastic effect on our economy.
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.
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
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.
Does anyone actually take what they read in that newspaper seriously?
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
An interesting hypothesis, but let me throw this out as a potential counter-argument:
I work in IT, always have except for a brief foray into another career for about three years, but decided I liked IT better and came back. I and most of the IT workers over 30 I know are married or engaged, but most of those (including myself) are not married to people who work in IT, or any other engineering-like discipline. In fact, of all the IT workers and engineers I know, only one are an engineer-engineer couple. They are both semiconductor engineers who met at work. Come to think of it, they are the only couple I know who met at work.
In light of that, I think you might be putting too much weight on the issue of working in a mostly-male environment.
[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.
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.
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...
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http://www.allthingsinteresting.com
You're assuming that someone is actually enforcing any of the rules already in place for H1B visa holders. Unfortunately, I am friends with number of H1B visa holders who, on the off chance that their green card will come through, will put up with almost anything: Long hours, terrible pay ($10/hour), no benefits, etc. The companies that hire them out to large corporations pocket a lot of money. Hell, I'd love to rat out the companies that exploit them, but I'd hate to see them loose their chance of staying here.
You may be among the minority of H1B visa holders who don't want permanent residence in the US. Unfortunately, most of them see that program as a quick(er) way to a green card.
A real solution would be to (a) provide a guaranteed green card in exchange for a certain number of hard-working, law-abiding years in the US, and (b) allow visa holders to hold their own visas, and remain in the country as long as they can find work within a certain time period, say, one year. They would then be able to demand market rates for their work, because they wouldn't be forced to put up with crap.
I fully agree with you. Getting rid of the 6-year limit and making changing jobs for H1Bs easier would actually solve more problems than it creates. Some steps were already taken in that direction -- e.g. 3 years ago the new legislation allowed a foreign worker to change jobs without waiting for the approval from the then-INS (now Department of Homeland Security... *shudder*). Nowadays if you are tired of your job, all you have to do is find another and send in the application paperwork. Once you receive "your paperwork has been accepted" slip, you can start working at the new position. It's not a perfect solution, but at least now H1Bs don't have to wait for 6-7 months for the approval of their transfer from DHS.
As to the 6-year limit, the result a lot of times is that foreign workers, knowing that they will likely have to leave the country eventually, will view their employment in the US as a venue for making money and then taking it with them back to their country of origin, where their savings suddenly become a small fortune. The country loses both the worker (if they managed to stay an H1B for 6 years, they are most likely a valuable asset to the country's economy) and the worker's savings.
Personally, I'm not bitter at all about having to leave my job. I knew this was coming for the past 3 years and was able to plan accordingly. Besides, I am looking at switching careers eventually down the line anyway.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
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:
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.
After reading all the threads related to India, offshoring and IT Trends I've come to these conclusions:
So, for any programmer, he/she should focus in the following:
And of course keep reading Slashdot!!