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Indian Software Firm Outsourcing Jobs To US
phobos13013 writes "NPR is reporting Indian software maker Wipro is outsourcing positions to a development office opening in Atlanta, Georgia. Although it sounds good for US job growth, the implication is that firms outside the US appear to be dominating more and more in the global economy, even from developing and underdeveloped regions of the world. Similarly, salaries of IT professionals world-wide are projected to stagnate or possibly fall due to the large pool of qualified applicants in the market today."
We freely sent off our manufacturing, then our IT, and a good bit of agriculture. But thankfully, we still have a great service industry, lots of restaurants, etc. That'll keep us safe in times of financial/world troubles.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This sounds a bit weird "Large pool of qualified applicants in the market today". What large pools, there is a shortage of qualified applicants in the IT industry as a whole, or is this just in issulated areas of the world? In Denmark at least there is a HUGE shortage of qualified people, especially if your a softare developer.
Moreover, you seem to think this is automatically bad. As a generally benign tax-paying and extremely low crime population, I hardly think Atlanta will suffer from inclusion of these H1-Bs.
RTFA, and consider using better language next time -- "gaggle", "ploy" -- just smacks of a snooty, condescending attitude.
We need internet FAST ENOUGH(which it isn't) that we can hire indian doctors for the poor.
Thats right. I am sure outsourcing to india would save the lower incomes a good penny.
Robotic Surgery with a doctor all the way in India or China?
Sounds good to me. I am sure the medical lobby will deem it too dangerous since they care for us so much.
About 10 years ago my wife and I moved from a beach area in California to North Central Arizona - partly because it is a beautiful place and partly because a much lower cost of living in Arizona has freed us up to be more flexible in our working (or not working). Neither one of us has had a job in an office since our move, and we both only work on projects that interest us.
:-)
Frankly, I can not understand why so many people trade both their time and preference to work on interesting projects for material stuff like frequently buying new cars, homes that are much larger than they really need, etc. I believe that this odd behavior is caused by a lifetime of subjecting oneself to advertising, but that is just a theory
Would you really recommend IT to school kids evaulating future careers with the canon of globalization pointed right up IT's ass? Things may turn out okay, or they may get worse. But you have to admit the global monkey is on IT's back, making it a risky career choice.
Table-ized A.I.
Qualified: appears to or on paper seems to be able to do the job. usually appears alongside a plethora of assorted "certifications" to further build on the assumption that the person is capable of doing the job.
Experienced: Has solid proof of abilities, usually lack certifications as Experienced professionals look down upon the certifications as most are nothing more than proof you can memorize and take a test. Very few certifications hold merit with seasoned and experienced professionals. The ones that do are held in high regard.
Basically to tell the difference, the more certifications a person has the greater the possibility that they are simply a useless tool. Yes I have tested this in real life. when looking for a outsourced programming company the ones that all the clients have the MOST trouble with are the ones that touted all kinds of certifications the employees need. ALSO many times these companies will violate your terms on the contract. I have had to inform clients on several occasions to pay for the removal of OSS code or not release their product or release the source code in order to be compliant with the law. The Outsourced firm used GPL libraries and snippets, even left the original headers and comments in there. That was 3 years ago though when I was a Code Monkey in Corporate America. I am certain it has not gotten any better.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Indeed, many Indian companies have started outsourcing elsewhere.
We're still far off from reaching a balance, but India will stop being a threat because of outsourcing within the next 10-20 years, I think, because they are seeing double the pressure on salaries: Their own software industry is growing too, and so unless they do something truly dramatic to increase the workforce in the IT fields, the main downward salary pressure in the west is going to shift to other markets.
How long it will take to drive up IT salaries in China and Russia is not something I'd want to start guessing at. But I don't exactly fear for my ability to find a job. If you are in low skilled IT jobs, sure, then there's a very good reason to update your skill set.
I am a natve US citizen, Caucasian male. I worked for Wipro recently, and they are a very good company. They paid me competitive rates to what I would get from a US company, and had excellent benefits. Their US home office is in Sunnyvale California about two blocks from Google. If it wasn't for the fact that I was ready to get out of a job that had me living in airports and hotels, I would still be there today.
Most of what I did was to put an American face on what is basically an Indian company. Any major development was handed off to my counterparts in India where skilled labor is cheaper. I spent an enormous amount of time acting as an interpreter on conference calls for customers who could not understand English with an Indian accent. I also did a lot of requirements gathering because the language barrier made it a painful process for many of our customers. It really was a good job, and if you have the personality that will let you be a good traveling consultant I highly recommended Wipro.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
I too get really annoyed with this reasoning myself. I work in the automotive industry, in a very highly unionised environment and I don't think this has ever seriously impacted on the company's ability to produce quality.
It was only when a large American car manufacturer bought up the group I work for, that we saw a marked increase in defects, both from the suppliers being squeezed and on their own production line where workers were being squeezed.
I'd say my point is, unions aren't required for a decent work force but they certainly don't have to impact on performance/quality either unless paying a decent wage is seen as an impact.
I'm going over here and I don't know why!
especially in IT. if going gets tough in one place, you can just move to another place.
Read radical news here
I don't think you can find a statistically significant difference between those with certifications and those without. I bet you could find quite a difference between those with experience and those without, though.
There is no relationship between certification and skill, positive or otherwise. If I go get a certification, am I worse than I was before? Absolutely not. We all have our reasons for getting them. I think the danger is replacing experience with certifications, or viewing certifications as anything other than rote understanding of technology.
I would also argue that it is easy enough to find someone with a great deal of experience who still sucks at the job. If you've been a bad coder for ten years, you're still a bad coder. Some people just aren't cut out to be engineers, but they still somehow manage to hold down a job for a long time.
US company makes gadgets ready for assembly.
They send gadgets over seas to be assembled
Gadget is sent back to US company for adding to another gadget.
US company claims entire sequence as increase in US productivity.
Is the productivity increase really said to belong to the US company?
Many economists calculating GDP are beginning to question it.
I'm sorry, but your analysis is all wrong.
So far there has been no flood of jobs back into the states, or even a trickle for that matter. Nor is there expected to be. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite. The firm in question believes that many American companies still do not trust Indian programming services, and their solution is to open an American office and put an American face on their services. They are looking to build a "brand name", if you will.
Their stated end goal is to actually see more programming jobs shifted to India. This isn't even a secret. Read the press releases they have made, they lay out their goals for everyone to read. They have no plans to bring jobs back to America, and why should they? They are interested in seeing their home nation do well, and they are positioning themselves extremely well to do just that. One could only wish that American politicians and business leaders felt the same about America.
If you believe that once India has a lock on these industries that they will not implement protectionist measures to keep the business locked up in their country, then you are far more optimistic than I am. The same with our manufacturing jobs. I'm sorry, but nothing will be "flowing" back to America.
America is like a vast pool that has shut off its water supply and at the same time sprung a leak. Everyone looks around and sees that there is still plenty of water. No one seems to realize that once our vast monetary reserves are drained the service industry will fold and the "American" Corporations will simply relocate elsewhere.
We always hear how Microsoft and Google only hire the brightest and make their working environment so cushy. I doubt that means they're looking for cheap developers. And judging from the quality of MS products, I think cheap developers would be disastrous to the thin trust their clients have left.
My company, albeit not Microsoft or Google, hires a fraction of a percentage of the developers who apply... and we hire mainly out of college students so they aren't rejected for lack of experience. The truth of the matter is, there is a shortage of good, SMART developers.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
I disagree. Refactoring is a very trivial problem to solve as well. Hungarian notation is generally only used for private and local variables and in that case "refactoring" just means doing a search-and-replace.
I actually got into the habit of doing this by working with a blind co-worker who couldn't easily use most the tools that modern IDEs provide. I've actually found it improved my productivity to not have to rely on these kinds of tools and have all the information I need on the screen at one time.
Yes, the world market is irrational. It happens every couple of decades. If you intend to try to profit from the current financial irrationality, remember this:
"The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" - John Maynard Keynes.
You're making my case for me: you're asking programmers to put overhead time into their work to make hungarian notation work (and demanding that they not make mistakes!). Hungarian notation is error-prone. It's not going to help your blind coworker if it is wrong.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Heh. The discussion you reference is linking Joel on software. I send beginners there and ask: give me a list of all the things Joel is obviously wrong about. I keep the ones who are smart enough to come back and say: I don't want to spend that much time writing it all down.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
First off, companies like Wipro and Infosys have been recruiting at top U.S. engineering and computer science schools for a long time now. Secondly, isn't it obvious what will eventually happen? Everyone is so hung up about outsourcing, especially in information technology, but who cares, seriously? The standard of living in India is rapidly rising, prices are rising, the rupee is getting stronger, etc...there is actually a shortage of labor in India at this point (relative to its incredible level of economic growth over the past 5 or so years). These Indian firms have been creating jobs in the U.S. for a long, long time. It's the same deal with the auto industry - everyone is so hung on up the "big three" auto companies just because they are headquartered in America. When they cut jobs it gets more coverage than Paris Hilton gets when a paparazzi snaps a photo of her pantiless cooch after a night of hard partying at some glorious Hollywood club, but when Subaru builds a new plant in Indiana or Toyota adds jobs stateside no one cares. We live in a global economy - as long as we (as in the United States) can provide qualified, quality laborers (which is another story altogether, but at least the ball is in our court), we have the ability to stay on top throughout this age of globalization. Who cares if you work for an Indian IT firm from an office in Boston? It doesn't make any different to me if I'm working for Accenture or Infosys as long as I have a job.
The problem with hungarian notation is that it conveys the most useless information about variables. Information which is guaranteed to be documented elsewhere. It harms subsequent maintainers because it encourages you to store useless information in variable names which of course winds up discouraging you from storing useful information in those variable names instead.
I'm in complete agreement with everything you said, except that Hungarian notation is a good tool for what you want. It's a bad, bad tool. Bad for developers, bad for maintainers.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking