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.'"

Comments

My professor has been saying this for years.

[rob_squared]

Professor Weinstein, if you want to know his name.

And a lot of people listened to him and minored in business. The problem is, when companies require x years of experience managing or in engineering/IT to get a job, where will we get those people?

So they really think

[Maxo-Texas]

That we are -ALL- going to be managers.

It is really sad to see them lying to us (and maybe even themselves) so blatantly.

Many of our outsourced positions now include outsourcing the project lead level as well.

The only thing that is going to save our jobs is higher wages overseas.

Why should you spend $50 grand and 4 years of your life to get a degree with NO FUTURE?!?

Sure if you are a genius- go for it. But if you are joe average "B" / low "A" type person- there are many easier degrees with better job prospects than IT. IT SUCKS.

No respect, no pay, no security, rampant age discrimination, constant retraining- and even then you have to be "lucky" to get experience at the hot new technology or you are out on your kiester in as little as 2-3 years.

Don't listen to the propaganda/lies that are suddenly being pushed over the last few months (in conjunction with the H1B issue oddly enough... HMMM!).

Lots of poeple can be hard workers.
Not many people can be good manager types.
Not many people can be hard workers for -LESS- than minimum wage when they are trying to pay back a $50 grand debt that they -CANNOT- declare bankruptcy to get out of when they get the shaft.

False

[WindBourne]

Everybody did notice that they study was for Information Managment, no? People think that we will keep managment here, while sending the tech jobs elsewhere. Not likely. In fact, as the tech jobs go, so will the managerial jobs. Anyinterface position will be those that can live in both cultures easily.

Personally, I would argue if you really do not wish to be outsourced, then become a marketer or become the company owner.

So the best way to avoid being outsourced IT?

[rsilvergun]

is to get into management? doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose of getting into IT? That's kinda like saying the best way to avoid losing your job in the steel mill is to get a degree in medicine.

Re:So the best way to avoid being outsourced IT?

[caffeinemessiah]

That's kinda like saying the best way to avoid losing your job in the steel mill is to get a degree in medicine.

Not necessarily. Management is a sort of meta-job. There would be no managers if there weren't people to manage (well, then they're consultants). Following your analogy, it would be like telling the steel mill worker that the best way to avoid losing his job would be to learn a little management so that he can float for a little while longer than his buddies.

About TFA, the solution seems more like jumping from a sinking ship to one with termites eating at a wooden hull.

Re:So the best way to avoid being outsourced IT?

[Irish_Samurai]

It sounds that way, but it isn't entirely. From what I have experienced, the suits have a real problem getting an IT guy to see their point of view, and the same is true in reverse. Someone who has the experience to understand why some of the ridiculous things managers ask for aren't as foolish when looked at from their perspective also knows how to employ the inverse.

That is a person who can lead a tech team from the frontlines and then come back to the Meeting Room and be an evangilist whos opinion carries weight. I view it as a redefinition of what a "project manager's" responsibilities and place in the corporate structure are.

Sometimes it isn't about a business wanting you to add up time cards and crack the whip. I think any geek would bend over backwards if it meant they could show some young turks through all the mistakes they had to figure out alone. Maybe business are learning that PHB's screw the IT shit up, so they go to their fall back option - can one of these geeks speak our language and will he wear a suit twice a year?

Outsourcing management

[Opportunist]

I'm not sure if switching over to management would be a good idea. If anything, management is easy to outsource. They're so out of touch with the reality of the company's everyday business that they can just as well reside on Mars.

Snide comments aside, the idea of getting management skills up is not so far fetched. I'm one test short of being a certified bank auditor. Add in a well rounded knowledge programming (including ABAP), a bit over 8 years of experience in computer and network security and a few more goodies that can make some impression on my resume. And so far, it's never been a problem to find a well paying job.

If you can "only" punch code, you're replacable. Yes, your code will blow anything created in India out of the water, it's 10x faster and 10x more secure, 10x easier to read and 10x more stable. But it's also 10x as expensive. And your management doesn't give a rat's behind about secure, stable and efficient code. Security doesn't matter (until shi. hits the fan, and by then the client has paid), stability is something the client has to deal with and efficiency is unnecessary when you have machines that have 1000x the horsepower needed to run any office application. Management wants cheap code! So try to have some "additional value". Give your prospective employer something he can't easily hand over to India.

Re:Outsourcing management

[gumnam]

>>>>>>>>>Yes, your code will blow anything created in India out of the water,

This is the typical response of paranoid-wool-over-eyes-americans. I dont know where these people get the impression that all code from India/Indians is slow/insecure/instable ?

Tell me how long will you continue to pay for lousy product/services ? If the management doesnt care about the quality of code, it will soon be out of business. India's contribution to software has grown over the last decade simply because its good enough. If it wasnt, there is no way this trend would have continued for so many years.

So stop deriding sofwtare from India ...

Differentiators

[uqbar]

I interview lots of tech folks. The things that set the best of the best apart are leadership skills, 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.

Very few techies have these skills - anyone that does is so amazingly useful to us that we'd never be able to oursource what they do.

The problem is that I don't know if these skills are the sort of thing you can just learn. I've seen plenty of techie MBAs that have no aptitude for leading.

Can this stuff really be learned?

Re:Other side of the coin

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I was able to do the job for $6K, plus cost of hardware. Their IT guy -- who gets $60K/year -- had already invested a month on the task and didn't seem anywhere close to completion. I did the job in two weeks.

And walked away.... leaving the $60K/year IT guy to maintain, upgrade and generally find some way your solution can live with the rest of the network. And all the while he's removing malware, cleaning systems, reimaging machines, desperately trying to get people to stop using "password" as their password, harranging the local ISP, trying to get the 68bit WEP key changed, supporting blackberries, upgrading hardware, relicencing software, debugging the company website, fixing the bosses' kids laptop, ordering replacement parts, plugging mice back in, kowtowing to the database admin, giving everyone gadget advice when they come calling, unjamming the printers, and trying to find a new job.

Oh what he wouldn't give to do a job for 6K, plus cost of hardware, and just.... walk away, down that Yellow Brick Road.

So in other words...

[AutopsyReport]

In order to avoid the crunch of outsourcing, we should suggest to our technically-skilled population to start pursuing management skills? What is this, a fast-forward button for the Peter Principle?

Let skilled workers be skilled workers (since it's what they do best), and managers be managers. At the very least, put emphasis on being a leader instead of being a manager. Many can manage, few can lead.

It defeats the purpose for a lot of

[Captain Tripps]

Like say, those of us who went into the field 'cause we liked it. If I wanted to be a manager, I'd have gone to business school in the first place. I hate when people just automatically assume that if you're successful, you'll inevitably end up in management. It's even in TFA: "The time period one spends as a programmer is becoming compressed." Like it's just a natural stepping-stone.

I'm a programmer, I'm proud of it, and I'm glad I can make a living at it. The head research programmer at my last job was 40, and still hacking Scheme and C. I hope that's where I'll be when I'm 40. Maybe it won't be possible, but if I have to go back to school to retrain, the last thing I'm getting is an MBA. I'm gonna look around for another career I like.

Re:You gotta hack your way through it.

[AngryNick]

And the answer is: you find whatever the hell you can, fight your way into it, and then hold onto that job for dear life until you have five years and some certifications.

You've got it exactly right. I see too many kids walking in expecting to be paid for what they think they already know, but unwilling to invest the energy to learn about and build the business they are supporting.

In '93 I moved 500 miles for an $8.00/hr job coding tax software--possibly the most boring software known to man -- because I thought it would be useful experience for a "real job." It was a crappy job with crappy hours and a very limited crappy life outside of work. When everyone else was bouncing from job to job, I stuck with it and worked my way up. When I finally left after 6 years, I was in charge of two product lines and a dozen programmers and CPAs. I'm now working on 14 years in the tax software industry and have little fear of being outsourced. Now I know the business, I know the issues, and I know the driving forces behind our decisions. They no longer pay me to write code (though I still sneak in a little); they now pay me to help them make more money.

I suggest that you get your foot in the door any way you can, smile while they dump sh!t on your head, show them that you're there for more than a paycheck, and most importantly, stick with it. As you demonstrate your commitment you will quickly be given more responsibility, money, and a more secure career.

These kids know how not to be outsourced

[gubachwa]

Anyone remember that old monster.com commercial? You know the one where the kids list off their career aspirations for when they grow up? "When I grow up, I want to claw my way to middle-management. When I grow up, I want to be a yes-man. Yes sir, coming sir." Check it out here.

Anyone else see the irony in this? Why did you go into the IT business? It's because you enjoy technology and you enjoy problem solving. And now you're being told the only way to save your job is by going into management?

I work in a company that is very management heavy, where there's tonnes of rhetoric about about developing leadership skills. I've had more than one manager tell me that the heads-down coder who knows the system inside-out has "very little value to the company." They want leaders, not specialists. Unfortunately, most of the managers who spout this nonsense would have trouble leading a horse out of a barn. They're all very good talkers, but once you start listening to what they say, you realize it's all BS.

The best "leaders" I've ever worked with are the ones who would never stand up and call themselves leaders. They're the ones who've worked in the trenches, have been the heads down coders and learned multiple systems inside and out over the years. They're the ones who have developed an instinct for what will work and what won't. They're not the boot-licking smooth-talking managers who promise the world to upper-management and then have to claw back features near the end of development because they had no clue what was involved in the work that they were committing to.

So yeah, if you want to save your job, go ahead and practice these lines "Yes, sir. Coming sir." Just like the kid from the commercial. Go into management, kiss up to your boss and your boss's boss. Learn to be a smooth-talker. In the end you'll be nothing more than a used car salesman in a more expensive suit, but at least you won't be outsourced.

On the other hand, if you want to save your dignity and have any passion left for the job that you originally signed up for, do not listen to the article. If you're at a company that respects the work that you do, then great. If not, find a different company to work for. They do exist.

You've got one life to live. Doing something that makes you miserable just because it will save you from being outsourced isn't worth it.