Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Moving To an Offshore-Proof Career?
New submitter sundarvenkata writes: I am sure most slashdotters (including the ones who had the I-am-an-indispensable-snowflake stance in the past) have already foreseen the writing on the wall for the future of tech professions (with IT being the worst hit) given some of the ominous news in the past few years: here, here and here. Of course, there are always the counter-arguments put forth by slashdotters that "knowing the business" or "being the best in what you do" would save one's derriere as if the offshore workers will remain permanently impaired of such skills. But I was wondering if some slashdotters could share some constructive real-life experiences of planning a transition to a relatively offshore-proof career. If you have already managed to accomplish such a career change, what was your journey and what would your advice be to other aspirants?
http://developers.slashdot.org...
http://itknowledgeexchange.tec...
in short: guy moves to malaysia (he had no ties to the area, just picked it on economic considerations) and doesn't just survive, but does well, on $16k/yr, working 10 hours a week
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Even better, specialize.
Generic Javascript/PHP/Java/C# "trained monkey" coders are a dime a dozen and most likely available for less than you are asking for, especially if the work can be done by someone overseas with 1/10th of your living expenses.
On the other hand, if you are skilled in mathematics, computer graphics (algorithms, not Photoshop!), statistics or artificial intelligence, you are going to be in high demand. These are skills that are a lot harder to find and command a good price. The downside is that you have to spend a lot of time by learning. That doesn't mean you must spend years and top $$$ on a university degree (it does help, though!), but you will need to invest some significant time there.
Basically, it is pretty much the same story as basic machinists working on lathes being replaced by CNC operators and robots - you need to bring some added value to the business. The low end - the basic programming - is pretty much a commodity today, especially for large companies who can afford to offshore/outsource. You are nobody special because you know Javascript or C# today.
The other option is to work local - there will be always a market for small businesses/consultants catering to mom & pop businesses that need a website built, accounting or customer management system created, perhaps some reporting beyond what Excel can do. Those are too small fish for the big guys like SAP to go after and too small to be able to afford a team in India/Eastern Europe to manage their systems, not to mention that it would be really impractical. It is a large market - not everyone has to (and can) work for Facebook, Google or Microsoft today.
Professor J. Rufus Fears taught me that a "career" is a French word that means "path." He says it's a path to get from graduation into a retirement home. I have tried to internalize this concept, and it helped me take risks with quitting multiple career-type jobs to open up my own businesses. Roll the dice, and see how they land. Have an adventure, not a career.
One business of mine is a software development company. This is my primary means of livelihood. Right now, I mostly contract out development services to small-to-medium sized organizations that have trouble staffing programmers. The vast majority of my clients are not large enough to hire a full time, on staff, programmer to help do what I (literally me programming, most of the time) do for them. I've developed a relationship with a programmer in Kazakhstan, where I can take advantage of the lower costs to get things developed cheaper than here. However, now I am working primarily with a MUCH more expensive local programmer, since his efficiency is higher, the Kazakh guy isn't as available and finding a new one is a ton of work, and on some projects the local presence far outweighs the cost savings by outsourcing. Plus, the American is my friend, an early mentor that taught me about web programming when we were both employees, and things are slow with him now so I wanted to get started working together (on a relatively small project for a client.) I'm also working on developing a software product for passive income, but that takes a LOT longer, and is much riskier than contracting.
Another business I have is rental property close to the local university. That business is, by definition, tied to my geographical area. When software is slow, rents come in and I can work on home improvement projects. When software is busy, rents still come in and I can pay someone else to do emergency repairs, and put off improvements until a slow time.
The concept of relying on a single employer for all my income is extremely scary to me. I would much rather diversify my software earnings across multiple clients to mitigate risk. Similarly, I'd rather have multiple one-bedroom apartments to rent out as compared to a big house to rent so that when one of the college students decides he cannot pay his rent this summer, and that he's leaving two months early (despite his two, international, trips setup...) I still have rents coming in. I have two companies which provide me with income, in terms of about seven clients/customers/renters. Both the Albuquerque software industry (most of my business is serving local customers) and the Albuquerque university rental market would have to collapse, simultaneously, for me to be majorly screwed. If anything, I'm pretty tied to Albuquerque and should try and diversify geographically more! I love Albuquerque though...
I do not have a family to provide for. I'm working on changing that, with trying to be as good of a boyfriend as I can be, with the goal of getting married someday. I am not saying that you should throw away all sense of security for your family (if you have one) and become a hustler overnight. "Look kids, we get to have the BLUE Ramen noodles for dinner tonight! Insurance? Who needs it?!? Jesus is my insurance!" No, that's not what I'm talking about... My local, subcontractor, friend (that I am just starting to work together with) took the plunge about three months ago and went into business for himself. He has a wife and two kids. He prepared extremely well, and setup enough contracts to be making about 1.7x his salary for the first three months from basically day one. This is his first slow two week period, so we are working together. My local community has all sorts of people that are interested in promoting entrepreneurial activities, helping you get started, and providing free advice. I am extremely
...the technology became so miniaturized that nobody could realistically repair anything anyway...
Miniaturization made the components smaller, but it didn't change the way the circuits work. If anything, the huge number of ICs used today have made the manufactured circuits much simpler and easier to understand (which is great because it's nearly impossible to get the schematics anymore).
There's still an electronics repair shop near my house and the owner absolutely repairs modern electronics. He doesn't just swap boards, either, he still replaces individual components. Electronic components these days are much smaller, but the concept is the same.
I've done a not insignificant amount of surgery on computers and phones and the like with a fine soldering pencil and a hot air gun. It's not difficult, it's just different. And tiny surface mount components are nice because they're cheaper and you can fit a huge number of components in a small space! You just need a good pair of tweezers and a loupe.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.