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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
Sweet! Now it's finally against the law to kill and eat me!
--
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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/
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.
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.
You can't be a "programmer" and also be "self-employed"?
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
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
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
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.
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.
... then I guess take-out is cheaper than home-cooked.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
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.
----- 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
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.
That's a good idea -- if you can get a clearance. Getting a security clearance can be difficult for various reasons. For one thing, you have to find a company that will sponsor you (either that, or go to work for the government). For another, you have to meet the requirements for a clearance, and they've tightened those up since 9/11 (I should know -- when I applied for a clearance, the government told me they'd have to investigate me for well over a year, just because I had changed my name). I even know of one guy who's been cleared for a while but is now in jeopardy of losing his clearance because his wife is French.
But yes -- if you can get the clearance, that's definitely an excellent way to give yourself a good dose of career security.
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.
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
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 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.
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.
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
Moral of the story: no, offshoring doesn't always bring all the beneifts that it is supposed to.
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!
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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).
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
My reasons were legitimate, and it was all done thru proper legal channels (in fact, I still have all the legal documents and so forth). My point was that, even in spite of all that, the government said they were going to have to investigate my name change extensively before deciding on a clearance, even though everything else in my background check was fine.
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
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).
Lagaan?
Taxes.
Glad I could help...
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
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?
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.
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.
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.
Freeze their bank accounts and sieze the assets, at gunpoint if necessary. These are not people, they don't have the right to emmigrate.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
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.
"... 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
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.
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
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
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.
Poor people spend, they don't save. That creates new demand, which creates new business opportunities, which creates new jobs.
Yeah, saving is bad, everybody max out your credit cards right now! Come on. When you save, you make money available for investing in new businesses and expanding existing ones.
I was fairly miffed that Kerry did so little to explain how increasing the minimum wage spurs the economy.
Because it doesn't. Otherwise we could increase the minimum wage to $50/hour and all be rich.
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.
European economies are much more Keynesian than the US, and have much higher unemployment.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
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
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.
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.
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.
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...
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
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.
...the same sources are reporting the tragic death of BSD.
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
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.
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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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: