-Rent: $600 a month. Either you have a roommate, rent a room or are somehow very lucky. For $1k you can probably manage to get a studio.
Not in the Silicon Valley. Yes if you're willing to live about 700 miles north of there, but not in the Silicon Valley.
-Utilities: $50 a month
In California in the Summer? Maybe if you like heat stroke or never sleeping.
-Food: $300 a month (it's called cooking).
This one I'd agree with.
-Car: It's called a bike or bus.
And this one. But your rent is more likely to be closer to $3k/month for a studio alone, and utilities will run you closer to $400. Call it $4k to live decently- $48,000/year.
You, of course, are correct if you live in Utah....
Inflation is proof that there is a creative Flying Spaghetti Monster out there somewhere. It is NOT, however, proof that such a force is intelligent or anything we'd think of as a being.
Erm... you might want to give that some more careful thought. You could easily be charged with possession or even distribution if somebody else misread your intent.
That's why you script it as coming from HIS terminal- complete with using a program that prints the machine and filename on the picture so that there is no mistake about where it came from.
All of which are good points for why this won't work in the long term. NONE of which will show up on the quarterly report for the stockholders. Guess which one makes the decisions when it comes to a publicly traded company.
The point is that an IIT grad can have the same four year university education for $4000. And if you both borrow the full amount, he can have his paid off in a month- at $12000/year LESS than you would demand. To a C-level goon, that's something he can't justify to his stockholders.
Yeah god forbid you have to live frugally for a few years.
If you're in the Silicon Valley and making less than $36,000 a year, you're going to be living on the STREETS for a few years.
Alternatively, if you're working for a startup and it ends the same way my first startup did, with the C-level executives skipping town and leaving, on average, $10,000/head salary unpaid, it won't matter where in the United States you live.
You can then proceed to the next interview. If every single job you apply for ends at HR, then you really need to take a look at yourself and ask why everybody thinks you suck.
Well, 15/16 anyway, the last time I was unemployed. But I KNOW why everybody thinks I suck- it's because I can't stand people. Chaos. I very much prefer the certainty of a microprocessor to the emotions of a human. I DO have a personality disorder- diagnosed by a professional- and it wasn't until I started admitting that up front that I found a way to have a job again (by claiming it as a disability, to get a government contract part time, then proving my abilities and engineering myself a job by manipulating policy).
For where I'm living now, cost of living is pretty low. I rent a 3 bedroom duplex apartment for just under $500/mo, heating included. So, for around here, I consider anything in the neighborhood of $50,000/year a decent salary. Obviously, this wouldn't be the case if I were in CA or somewhere else people generally want to live. 8^) All told though, I do make a good living. After car/rent/credit payments, more than 60% of my income still goes to "Misc."
I was in that situation for my first 24 months out of college- then the startup went under with over $10,000 in my wages unpaid.
Just for the record, I graduated Jan 2007 with a Bachelors of CS degree from Utah State University, with a 2.8 GPA. My point is that, I *am* that guy. I just graduated, I had little (6 mos) professional programming experience, and neither my school nor my GPA are particularly advantageous. I still found plenty of people who wanted to pay me a decent salary.
What do you consider a "decent salary"? Still, I'm pretty amazed- maybe the market really is rebounding, finally.
If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area and have basic Java or C++ skills you should be able to find an entry level job if you apply yourself at all.
1. I'm not in the San Francisco Bay area. 2. At least three of the major employers there haven't hired a single American since 2001.
I'm a software engineer who sometimes has the need to hire on junior engineers (ok, programmers) and I've found that it's incredibly hard to find entry level people with even the most basic understanding of Java. The last time I posted a position on Craig's List I got many applications but no takers that weren't either: a) lying about their knowledge of basic (and I do mean basic) Java or b) pretty severely 'personality disordered'. If you have a reasonably sunny attitude, no mysterious 10 year gaps in your personal history, understand how to use a static variable in Java, and live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can find a decent entry level job. You won't make a lot of money for a while but that will come if you're any good and you stick with it. Programming/Software Engineering has a pretty long apprenticeship.
Your category b) fits every American programmer I know. There's a lot more money to be made in importing and retail right out of the gate if you have a personality, so why isolate yourself behind a monitor for substandard pay for years if you've got the people skills necessary to become a house flipping billionaire?
Correct. But Software Engineering degree *alone* doesn't make you a good software engineer either- this is a job that *requires* real world experience. You can't get that real world experience without understanding how to apply differential equations and program them in both iterative and recursive fashion (and sometimes also in reverse polish recursive)- but you also aren't a good programmer until you have been forced to apply what you know to a real world situation.
I've interviewed kids who haven't even finished University and you can tell that they are going to be fantastic. Kids with amazing observational skills, aware of small differences and really eager to learn how to do things right. They are the people that get gigs straight out of uni and have the world open to them.
Yes, but given the choice between an American who fits that profile and paid $40,000 for his diploma, and an Indian who fits that profile and paid $4,000 for his diploma, which are you going to hire and how are you going to justify that choice to your stockholders?
EVERY one of the people saying I'm wrong to worry about outsourcing have 5+ years in the industry; many 10-15+. But that's NOT what the "Ask Slashdot" article was about, and it's not what my message was about. Sure, I was pushed into public service to survive, but that's because I'm a rotten interview + outsourcing. I can still survive, hell, my future's quite bright with the next 5 years of guaranteed raises backed by tax policy.
It's the guy just getting out of high school or college in the last 10 years and the next 6 that is the real question. And for that generation of programmers/software engineers, I have to say that being born American is a *SERIOUS* negative that you have to take seriously if you're ever going to get the experience to become *adequate*, let alone *good*.
Since you think marxism will save the universe..give me the date by which the economy will collapse, crime reaches 4 times the current rate, and people start starving (unless Marxism is implemented and people are denied the ability to trade with each other).
And regarding job availability, I get about three emails a day asking me to apply for some job based on a skills match, and probably another five phone calls a week for the same thing.
And I've found that most of those jobs are fakes- resume collectors that claim "No qualified American is available" to have 50 years of experience in Windows Vista, so we've got to apply for another H-1b.
Long term isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about losing an entire generation of engineers who are just starting their careers- creating a skills gap that the United States will find it VERY hard to recover from as long as we still, among 3rd generation families, have below Zero Population Growth.
I'm in the Silicon Forest rather than the Silicon Valley. They told us when they killed the logging jobs around here that high tech would take over. Well, it hasn't. In fact, near as I can tell, the Silicon Valley is a money pit that produces nothing of any real value.
Not everybody is independently wealthy enough to endure startup economics or working for free for the 5 years or so to cover the experience gap. Be glad you had mommy and daddy paying your bills.
What? you're required to take on 40k of loans to pay for 4 years of courses? What is that 10k/year = 2k/course?
Most Americans, full load, take between 3-4 courses per TERM- between 12-16 per year. Does that bring the price more in line with what you are used to?
Of course, this isn't just tuition- it's books & living expenses as well, plus additional fees.
Wow man, my fiancé just graduated from the University of Manitoba and she was paying less than 1k/course with books included. Are you working during University? Are you being forced to live in a dorm or something? Don't they have "commuter campuses"? My fiancé graduated with zero debt by living at home and working 10-20 hours / week, plus full-time summers (and getting straight As in her last 3 years).
Sounds about right- under 1k/course.
Man, the entirety of my Bachelor's (at 30k+ student school) cost me less than 20k. I paid for bills by working part-time. I know that US universities are a little more expensive and I hear that tuitions are going up, but like more than twice as expensive? That's hard to believe. Are you sure that people aren't just graduating with 40k in debt b/c they don't know how manage their money?
That's part of it too- no American high school teaches money management. But a large part of it is even the state schools here aren't subsidized as heavily as they are in Canada.
Let me tell you.. people can and will hire a diamond in the rough.. if you are good. I mean good at problem solving and pretty bright, all you need to do is get your foot in the door and there are literally thousands of ways to do that.
But why would they hire an AMERICAN diamond-in-the-rough, if the Indian diamond -in-the-rough is 1/10th the cost? There's no way to get a foot in the door against absolute advantage.
You want a programming job, try making "demo reel". I mean make some cool little programs and polish them up. They need to be something useful.. nothing huge and attach a link to your cover letter.. include a link to a website you designed as an advertisement site for yourself. If you take the initiative you can break into the industry VERY easy.
But once again, why would they hire your demo reel over an IIT graduate's demo reel at 1/10th the cost?
You might not immediately get a job at Microsoft or Apple, but I guarantee there are businesses from large to small that always look out for people that have a passion for programming and can display the raw talent even if they have never done it for a living before.
Yes, but those businesses are no longer looking at America for talent- Americans are too expensive.
I did the same thing 10+ years ago.. I now am a self-taught (no college) Software Architect and run a development team. I know good programmers are needed because I hire them myself. So don't let people spout doom and gloom, it is still lucrative and in demand as long as you can program yourself out of a paper bag. You do have to be adaptable and you need to always be ready to learn something new, it is not an industry where you often get chances to "coast", but it is definately worth it.
That was 10+ years ago. Now, it's cheaper to get your diamonds in the rough elsewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
-Rent: $600 a month. Either you have a roommate, rent a room or are somehow very lucky. For $1k you can probably manage to get a studio.
Not in the Silicon Valley. Yes if you're willing to live about 700 miles north of there, but not in the Silicon Valley.
-Utilities: $50 a month
In California in the Summer? Maybe if you like heat stroke or never sleeping.
-Food: $300 a month (it's called cooking).
This one I'd agree with.
-Car: It's called a bike or bus.
And this one. But your rent is more likely to be closer to $3k/month for a studio alone, and utilities will run you closer to $400. Call it $4k to live decently- $48,000/year.
You, of course, are correct if you live in Utah....
Inflation is proof that there is a creative Flying Spaghetti Monster out there somewhere. It is NOT, however, proof that such a force is intelligent or anything we'd think of as a being.
Erm... you might want to give that some more careful thought. You could easily be charged with possession or even distribution if somebody else misread your intent.
That's why you script it as coming from HIS terminal- complete with using a program that prints the machine and filename on the picture so that there is no mistake about where it came from.
All of which are good points for why this won't work in the long term. NONE of which will show up on the quarterly report for the stockholders. Guess which one makes the decisions when it comes to a publicly traded company.
The point is that an IIT grad can have the same four year university education for $4000. And if you both borrow the full amount, he can have his paid off in a month- at $12000/year LESS than you would demand. To a C-level goon, that's something he can't justify to his stockholders.
Yeah god forbid you have to live frugally for a few years.
If you're in the Silicon Valley and making less than $36,000 a year, you're going to be living on the STREETS for a few years.
Alternatively, if you're working for a startup and it ends the same way my first startup did, with the C-level executives skipping town and leaving, on average, $10,000/head salary unpaid, it won't matter where in the United States you live.
You can then proceed to the next interview. If every single job you apply for ends at HR, then you really need to take a look at yourself and ask why everybody thinks you suck.
Well, 15/16 anyway, the last time I was unemployed. But I KNOW why everybody thinks I suck- it's because I can't stand people. Chaos. I very much prefer the certainty of a microprocessor to the emotions of a human. I DO have a personality disorder- diagnosed by a professional- and it wasn't until I started admitting that up front that I found a way to have a job again (by claiming it as a disability, to get a government contract part time, then proving my abilities and engineering myself a job by manipulating policy).
For where I'm living now, cost of living is pretty low. I rent a 3 bedroom duplex apartment for just under $500/mo, heating included. So, for around here, I consider anything in the neighborhood of $50,000/year a decent salary. Obviously, this wouldn't be the case if I were in CA or somewhere else people generally want to live. 8^) All told though, I do make a good living. After car/rent/credit payments, more than 60% of my income still goes to "Misc."
I was in that situation for my first 24 months out of college- then the startup went under with over $10,000 in my wages unpaid.
I did that for the first 8 years of my career. Average time to go boom was 13 months. 4 if the company had gone public.
And what does all of that get you? An HR guru who won't hire you because they don't like your "personality disorder".
Just for the record, I graduated Jan 2007 with a Bachelors of CS degree from Utah State University, with a 2.8 GPA. My point is that, I *am* that guy. I just graduated, I had little (6 mos) professional programming experience, and neither my school nor my GPA are particularly advantageous. I still found plenty of people who wanted to pay me a decent salary.
What do you consider a "decent salary"? Still, I'm pretty amazed- maybe the market really is rebounding, finally.
It's hard to have a bright cheery attitude after the 10th time you've been thrown out like garbage just for being born American.
If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area and have basic Java or C++ skills you should be able to find an entry level job if you apply yourself at all.
1. I'm not in the San Francisco Bay area.
2. At least three of the major employers there haven't hired a single American since 2001.
I'm a software engineer who sometimes has the need to hire on junior engineers (ok, programmers) and I've found that it's incredibly hard to find entry level people with even the most basic understanding of Java. The last time I posted a position on Craig's List I got many applications but no takers that weren't either: a) lying about their knowledge of basic (and I do mean basic) Java or b) pretty severely 'personality disordered'. If you have a reasonably sunny attitude, no mysterious 10 year gaps in your personal history, understand how to use a static variable in Java, and live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can find a decent entry level job. You won't make a lot of money for a while but that will come if you're any good and you stick with it. Programming/Software Engineering has a pretty long apprenticeship.
Your category b) fits every American programmer I know. There's a lot more money to be made in importing and retail right out of the gate if you have a personality, so why isolate yourself behind a monitor for substandard pay for years if you've got the people skills necessary to become a house flipping billionaire?
Correct. But Software Engineering degree *alone* doesn't make you a good software engineer either- this is a job that *requires* real world experience. You can't get that real world experience without understanding how to apply differential equations and program them in both iterative and recursive fashion (and sometimes also in reverse polish recursive)- but you also aren't a good programmer until you have been forced to apply what you know to a real world situation.
I've interviewed kids who haven't even finished University and you can tell that they are going to be fantastic. Kids with amazing observational skills, aware of small differences and really eager to learn how to do things right. They are the people that get gigs straight out of uni and have the world open to them.
Yes, but given the choice between an American who fits that profile and paid $40,000 for his diploma, and an Indian who fits that profile and paid $4,000 for his diploma, which are you going to hire and how are you going to justify that choice to your stockholders?
It's funny how many people missed my point.
EVERY one of the people saying I'm wrong to worry about outsourcing have 5+ years in the industry; many 10-15+. But that's NOT what the "Ask Slashdot" article was about, and it's not what my message was about. Sure, I was pushed into public service to survive, but that's because I'm a rotten interview + outsourcing. I can still survive, hell, my future's quite bright with the next 5 years of guaranteed raises backed by tax policy.
It's the guy just getting out of high school or college in the last 10 years and the next 6 that is the real question. And for that generation of programmers/software engineers, I have to say that being born American is a *SERIOUS* negative that you have to take seriously if you're ever going to get the experience to become *adequate*, let alone *good*.
Yes, but didn't you have a time when your code didn't compile? May have been a few decades ago- but I'm willing to bet you did.
That's what I'm talking about- diamonds in the rough that just because they were born American, are too expensive to hire.
Since you think marxism will save the universe ..give me the date by which the economy will collapse, crime reaches 4 times the current rate, and people start starving (unless Marxism is implemented and people are denied the ability to trade with each other).
9/11/2001- we're six years into WWIII now.
And regarding job availability, I get about three emails a day asking me to apply for some job based on a skills match, and probably another five phone calls a week for the same thing.
And I've found that most of those jobs are fakes- resume collectors that claim "No qualified American is available" to have 50 years of experience in Windows Vista, so we've got to apply for another H-1b.
Long term isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about losing an entire generation of engineers who are just starting their careers- creating a skills gap that the United States will find it VERY hard to recover from as long as we still, among 3rd generation families, have below Zero Population Growth.
I'm in the Silicon Forest rather than the Silicon Valley. They told us when they killed the logging jobs around here that high tech would take over. Well, it hasn't. In fact, near as I can tell, the Silicon Valley is a money pit that produces nothing of any real value.
By moving here, and drawing the same wages.
So why are H-1b holders, on average, paid $12,000/year less?
Your logic does not fit the facts, which makes you a bad scientist and an extremely dangerous engineer.
Not everybody is independently wealthy enough to endure startup economics or working for free for the 5 years or so to cover the experience gap. Be glad you had mommy and daddy paying your bills.
What? you're required to take on 40k of loans to pay for 4 years of courses? What is that 10k/year = 2k/course?
Most Americans, full load, take between 3-4 courses per TERM- between 12-16 per year. Does that bring the price more in line with what you are used to?
Of course, this isn't just tuition- it's books & living expenses as well, plus additional fees.
Wow man, my fiancé just graduated from the University of Manitoba and she was paying less than 1k/course with books included. Are you working during University? Are you being forced to live in a dorm or something? Don't they have "commuter campuses"? My fiancé graduated with zero debt by living at home and working 10-20 hours / week, plus full-time summers (and getting straight As in her last 3 years).
Sounds about right- under 1k/course.
Man, the entirety of my Bachelor's (at 30k+ student school) cost me less than 20k. I paid for bills by working part-time. I know that US universities are a little more expensive and I hear that tuitions are going up, but like more than twice as expensive? That's hard to believe. Are you sure that people aren't just graduating with 40k in debt b/c they don't know how manage their money?
That's part of it too- no American high school teaches money management. But a large part of it is even the state schools here aren't subsidized as heavily as they are in Canada.
Let me tell you.. people can and will hire a diamond in the rough.. if you are good. I mean good at problem solving and pretty bright, all you need to do is get your foot in the door and there are literally thousands of ways to do that.
But why would they hire an AMERICAN diamond-in-the-rough, if the Indian diamond -in-the-rough is 1/10th the cost? There's no way to get a foot in the door against absolute advantage.
You want a programming job, try making "demo reel". I mean make some cool little programs and polish them up. They need to be something useful.. nothing huge and attach a link to your cover letter.. include a link to a website you designed as an advertisement site for yourself. If you take the initiative you can break into the industry VERY easy.
But once again, why would they hire your demo reel over an IIT graduate's demo reel at 1/10th the cost?
You might not immediately get a job at Microsoft or Apple, but I guarantee there are businesses from large to small that always look out for people that have a passion for programming and can display the raw talent even if they have never done it for a living before.
Yes, but those businesses are no longer looking at America for talent- Americans are too expensive.
I did the same thing 10+ years ago.. I now am a self-taught (no college) Software Architect and run a development team. I know good programmers are needed because I hire them myself. So don't let people spout doom and gloom, it is still lucrative and in demand as long as you can program yourself out of a paper bag. You do have to be adaptable and you need to always be ready to learn something new, it is not an industry where you often get chances to "coast", but it is definately worth it.
That was 10+ years ago. Now, it's cheaper to get your diamonds in the rough elsewhere.