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Lowering the Odds of Being Outsourced
Lam1969 writes "Computerworld points to a study by the Society for Information Management, which concludes that the best thing young IT workers can do to avoid being outsourced is beef up their management skills. The article quotes Thomas Tanaka, a recent computer engineering graduate, describing a recent job interview: 'While the Santa Clara, Calif., resident has generally been looking for entry-level software jobs with IT vendors, he recently had an interview with a financial firm looking to fill an in-house IT position. That's where his lack of business background was exposed.'"
And once again we have a job outsourced to a cheaper replacement who can't get the job done right.
Are you out of your fucking mind? If we spent nearly as much time with our management skills as we do with our technological skills, we'd not only own your company, but you'd be licking our feet like the gods we already are. You management types should already know by now (and I've been in two management positions already,) that you're too busy trying to keep up with the newest business scam instead of trying to keep up with the exacting needs of network security and technology. Give us a break, quit outsourcing American jobs to India, and give us a fucking chance. Until then, I'm more than content working at a fast-food joint where their 'computers' are 486-DX2/4 touchscreen registers. All I do is cook food and on occasion show a person how to operate the overly-basic touchscreen register, now, and I'm happy, because my skills in computers not only save the franchise that I am working for money, but it also gives me a higher pay rate, even though I'm a mere 'cook/line-worker-on-call-to-fix-register-problems ' employee.
Yea, you heard that right. I get paid more than a Taco Bell manager, and I'm only a line-cook that has more technological knowledge than he has. Isn't that sad, guys? I make $11 an hour whereas our manager only makes $8.50. You all might as well try to hit up the fast food industry, where you can stop fraudulent serving times and fix register problems on the fly since it all runs DOS 6.22+
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
ability to think in a deep analytical fashion that starts with looking at the assumptions, curiousity and ability to communicate with good, articulate answers and thoughtful questions.
At which point they will be labeled "non-team-player" and fired.
Can this stuff really be learned?
Nobody knows what it is, so no, it probably can't be learned. Management just wants to play golf with some recently fired homeowner's salary in their pocket.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Embedded industrial software is an entire genre of software that has no end user at all.
Unless that industrial software is going into machines to be used by other machines on a machine planet, and machines placed the order, you're wrong. Even then you'd be wrong, because those machines would be sentient and you'd have to use the same kind of skills to deal with them. And you've sidestepped the fact that damn near everybody working in this field is working with and for other human beings. Those few that aren't, are also salespeople for their own products.
I've never met any person like that- ever.
Based on what you've said so far, I'm going to hazard a guess that you meet them all the time, and just never find out about their reactions to you and what goes on behind the scenes afterwards. But, it's a guess; it's possible that you're right, and have just lead an extraordinarily sheltered existence.
Best advice so far. If you own the company outright (ie. no board of directors to oust you), you are outsource-proofed. Most Slashbots don't have the stones to make it with their own company, so they are reduced to whining about outsourcing. Words for these people: Grow up. No one owes you a job. If you're allowed to leave the company at any time, the company is allowed to fire you at any time. It's this attitude of entitlement that is causing the riots in France: "I am leaving work to strike to teach you that you shouldn't be able to fire me!"
Of course, Slashbots are so obsessed with getting more milk, they don't realize that you can own the damn cow.
Because you've got to be able to talk to your fellow programmers to make sure the interface between your code and theirs isn't fucked up. Because pair programming actually works. Because you need to be able to ask for clarification of project requirements. Because failing to speak up when there's a problem (for example, some huge bug that will screw up the entire project schedule) is likely to cost you your job, if the management aren't total morons.
Any other stupid questions?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz