U.S. Programmers An Endangered Species? 1361
CommanderData writes "USA Today reports that US Programmers are an 'Endangered Species' and expects them to be 'extinct' within the next few years, replaced by offshoring and H-1B visa holders. They suggest people will manage overseas projects, become self-employed, or switch to other fields. What do my fellow code-dinosaurs plan to do before the asteroid hits?" A report on Newsforge (which is part of OSTG along with Slashdot) shows the flip side of the coin.
strange indeed (Score:3, Interesting)
Peculiar contradiction (Score:2, Interesting)
You can't be a "programmer" and also be "self-employed"?
An idea (Score:1, Interesting)
Those jobs will never be outsourced.
I'm coming in! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not planning on stealing anyone's job - my company is creating a new position for me here, and the experience I have with the company's products from working in the UK office is one of the main drivers for moving me, rather than hiring someone else.
I'm also not a cheaper option - my salary is on a par with US techies, and my company has to pay $$$ for the visa and relocation expenses. So, it's a sink or swim world - might be positions available in the UK or other places. It's not the third world outside, you know - this is free movement of jobs and labour
David
Other fields (Score:5, Interesting)
Automotive mechanics
Carpentry (soon to branch out and study architecture and general contracting)
Farming/survival/self-sufficiency
Anyone have others? What hobbies to computer professionals enjoy that might branch out into alternate careers? I discarded Lego building immediately
Re:Language issue (Score:2, Interesting)
Bad News (Score:3, Interesting)
Watch out India, you're next! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Well, according to the last debate... (Score:4, Interesting)
they're just being replaced by people like me (Score:3, Interesting)
futures market (Score:5, Interesting)
Change is inevitible. (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Jobs needing a security clearance. In my area (Northern VA, this is almost the rule rather than the exception.
2) Jobs that require you to be 'close' to the problem - such as system administration, software engineering for in-house applications, etc.
As more and more jobs are outsourced, something interesting is going to happen: The people who got into this career in the late 90's because they could spell 'HTML' will complain about it, and go away. Those that are left will be the TALENTED people. They will 'move up the food chain' as lower level jobs are outsourced. Those left behind will become the people designing the system , those doing integration, and those doing quality assurance.
Re:Whoa! Behind the times! (Score:3, Interesting)
Moral of the story: no, offshoring doesn't always bring all the beneifts that it is supposed to.
Gone? Unlikely (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent is very insightful, but the senior positions won't move, unless entire projects are moved overseas. At that point why not just license someone else's code? They will just have a lot of trouble trying to fill them with people who have a resume that meets the requirement that they are looking for. Eccccccenomikz says that at that point, either HR will have to lower expectations (less bang for the buck from their point of view) or Pay more to get the top talent (Scarcity of resource drives price up). Either way it's a long term negative for businuess in the USA, because of their short sighted goals. Which is really rather typical of the American businuess perspective.
(Eventually, Japan might just buy the entire world, because they have long term goals and are patient about achieving them.)
Re:Whoa! Behind the times! (Score:3, Interesting)
That's very true, but in the long term the business that relies on this inefficent means of producing software for itself will be eaten alive by a competitor that counts pennis and opts not to take the wasteful steps in the first place.
Our company got out of offshoring PDQ (within a year) because they have very tight reigns on use of money and can't afford years of expensive exploration that leads nowhere. It also did lead to the ejection of some upper level people (thought it was other factors besides just offshoring that did that).
What if... (Score:3, Interesting)
More accurately, it's probably a combination of the two. The first part of free trade is essentially to replace programmers with less expensive programmers overseas. The second part is to use this stick to keep the remaining, more talented US programmers that are still left, in line. So, I think that part of this reporting could be a psychological bluff that is used on the more talented programmers. i.e. "You'd better not ask for too much, or you'll be delivering pizzas." The only reason I'm bringing this up, is because all of the reporting on offshoring seems out of character for US mainstream media, which usually is content to not say a word when things such as this are going on.
Re:Oh, For Pete's Sake (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with you... Although this is even more shameful [indiatimes.com]
They actually cited a dumb slashdot joke as the source
Re:Exactly. (Score:5, Interesting)
In the real word of hardware/software integration, it usually takes a bit of time between the people that write the drivers for hardware and the hardware designers to get things right. Usually with both H/W and S/W sitting in a room together with some kind of test equiptment to make sure that the hardware is doing the right thing and to find which side of the fence the bugs lie. That's hard to do with a 12-hour phase shift.
It doesn't solve the H1B visa issue, but there are many senior people who make 10x what people in India make for a reason. They are worth their weight in gold because of the time that is saved by others. An excellent debugging person can save boatloads of other people's time that a crappy debugging person would waste. That's what makes the more expensive person cheaper.
I think all this doom and gloom stuff is left over from the heady days of the boom times and the subsequent crash. There may be certain types of jobs that go overseas, but there are many that will stay right here for the forseeable future.
10 years ago people though I was nuts for doing this Unix thing when all the jobs would be in Windows. Yet, I still get calls for more work than I can do from people that need a unix programmer. So the pundants are worth exactly what you pay them for their opinions: nothing
In 15 years I've never seen a "code monkey"... (Score:5, Interesting)
The beginning programming jobs I've been exposed to over the years have *not* been just "coding" positions -- writing code is only one of the tasks involved in the job. The person also has to do a number of other things, often including the initial requirements gathering and various follow-up tasks with the end users or customers, creating the interface/program/database design, doing the actual coding itself, writing or updating any technical documentation which might exist, doing formal unit testing before acceptance testing, doing regression testing if required, and finally providing the actual support to the customer after the code is loaded into production.
That was the case for me when I first came out of school (I was effectively put in charge of a particular set of programs and had to do it all), and it's still the case in my current place of employment.
Maybe some companies can actually afford to have dedicated design people who don't actually write the code themselves, but I guess the places I worked didn't have the resources required to have that type of functional separation. The one or two experts in each area had to do it all, since there wasn't anyone else who know each area well enough to produce an effective design.
Cognitive Dissonance in the Face of Bad News (Score:3, Interesting)
It's human nature to respond to put the best possible light on a negative situation that doesn't appear to be changeable.
This may be somewhat OT, but I think it's a good example of this cognitive dissonance [wikipedia.org] phenomenon: I am a social conservative (strongly support the right of an armed citizenry, believe abortion should be illegal during all 9 months, for example) who is not voting for either the Republican or Democrat presidential candidate. I simply can't see myself voting for someone who has proven himself as incompetent as Bush has, even though I actually agree with him on most of the issues I find important. (The Iraq war and the environment are exceptions.) I found it at turns amusing and exasperating so see how my conservative friends tried to defend Bush's "puzzled chimp" performance in the first debate: "It was 9PM Eastern time, and that's late at night for him," "I don't think he did that bad," "He's a plain-spoken man," etc. Imagine their reaction if things had been switched and Kerry had performed that dismally. There would have been a lot of gloating and pointing out that his fate was sealed.
Now, back onto the topic: Good luck with your theory that only programming grunt work is going to be offshored. Yeah, that's what we said about manufacturing some years back, maintaining that the real "brain work" will stay in the U.S. Not a chance.
Just take a look at what Google [enterblog.com] says about the topic. I found one of the first hits, "Offshore Outsourcing World" [enterblog.com] to be particularly interesting, and chilling. Ironically, the article talks about google itself.
I actually don't see any alternative to free trade, and firmly believe that capitalism is the only way to go (conservative there, again). But with the last barriers to global competition rapidly coming down, a re-distribution of wealth is in progress on a global scale. That means painful adjustments for those who have gotten used to having more of it than most of the world's people.
I am a registered patent agent, licensed to practice law in patent matters before the U.S Patent & Trademark Office. To get to where I'm now at, I've had to get a four-year technological degree, pass a really tough exam, and learn how to write by working under some experienced patent attorneys for that past five years or so. (Self-promotional but generally informative info here. [eepatents.com])
So, does that mean my career is safe? See for yourself. [bearcave.com]
Re:Programming versus Software Engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
But there's a difference between programming and software engineering...
Very true. Programming is just one part of the software development process. Programming focuses on product, software engineering focuses on process. Programming is the "what", software engineering is the "how". This leaves out one part of the equation, one part I will probably be flamed for bringing up: computer science.
I consider myself a computer scientist as opposed to a programmer or software engineer. I have a solid CS background and am working on buttressing that with mathematics education. I like CS theory, statistics, discrete mathematics, etc. I do not like being a code monkey, nor do I like being a software engineer, although I do value both and do take on both those roles at my job. I much prefer being a computer scientist. How does this fit into the scenario presented by the article?
While I think most theory and math discoveries are already made, I still think progress is possible. I want to do research, but it looks like the shrinking computer fields might have repercussions even in academia. I may have to emmigrate to the next computer nexus to keep on the bleeding edge. I hate to bring politics into this, but I think that for all the educational focus our national leadership has, I think they all need to realize that bright, intelligent workers mean nothing if India can still do the work cheaper. Then we have a shrinking working class paying taxes to support new, bright workers who spend years being educated only to collect unemployment benefits. How about a "No Worker Left Behind" law?
Re:Programming versus Software Engineering (Score:2, Interesting)
Projects fail all the time for both inhouse and outhouse developemt. I have participated on many development project, both outside on the same country or offshore, which have succeeded.
Most of the outhouse project I've seen fail did so because of bad (or total lack of) project management. Look at the opensource comunity if you need an exemple close to you.
About all this discussion, it is a (u)natural trend of developed countries to give the job that are not so glamorous to the poor [countries]. Remember the chinese building american railroads ?
This is nothing new.
There are still much software development hapening inside the USA. But of course there will be much off-shoring because of cheap hour rates. That is to be expected in business. Expecially to countries that have excelent human resources for software development (programers), like India, Israel and Brazil (to name 3).
Isn't this what the so called global economy is all about ? I find it a simple enough fact to have a product whose development is spread around the world. No country is an island anymore. Well, most of them, anyway.
Re:Whoa! Behind the times! (Score:3, Interesting)
I did some consulting for a large, software-focused company that has been trying some outsourcing. The have a standard company measure for units of functionality, and tried sending some projects to Indian programmers and measuring the cost. All things accounted for, the cost per unit was about 50% lower, not the radical 80-90% off that you hear.
But that didn't mean that they were going to do a lot of outsourcing. For the core parts of their software, they wanted in-house people to work on it; it's too risky putting the crown jewels in the hands of hired mercenaries. And the barriers to communication were large enough that many kinds of projects couldn't really be sent, because transferring the appropriate knowledge is too hard.
Re:Career Change (Score:2, Interesting)
Why do you think you'll have to be?
Yep, more and more programming jobs will be outsourced to India. And as Indians become more and more technically competent, do you suppose they might get bored selling their skills to Americans at a cut rate and decide to, you know, do something with those skills?
In a very few years they won't be able to meet their own demand for code, much less ours. And that's a very good thing. A rich India is a vast export market. The fact that it will soon be bigger than China, and English-speaking as well, just gives Americans a leg up. You're thinking in the wrong direction.programming becoming a secondary job skill (Score:4, Interesting)
It's probably true that over time fewer employees in the US will call themselves developers/programmers. If tech support can be handled in other countries, it will be.
However, in-house sysadmin jobs aren't going overseas, and the marketing/training/consulting jobs probably aren't disappearing here (esp if it involves lots of face-to-face contact).
People won't be hired to write programs; they will be hired to find solutions and to adapt commercial/open source solutions to a company's needs. To do this, programming skills will probably be helpful. But it will exist as a secondary skill (helpful but not necessary).
Compare this to my own situation. Every business book says how important writing/communication skills are for business. Does that mean I (a talented writer) will never have problems finding work as a writer? No (although I currently work as a tech writer).
You see, accountants, marketing reps, even engineers benefit from excellent writing skills. But it is not the primary skill they are being hired for. Similarly, techies won't be hired solely for programming skills. However, it will be viewed as a desirable secondary skill for the resume.
Work Smarter not Harder (Score:2, Interesting)
(see http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html [paulgraham.com] for a Lisp case study).
Re:Whoa! Behind the times! (Score:3, Interesting)
The offshoring centres in Bangalore have a direct satellite link to the international telephone network, and backup power generators in the basement. They organise their own shuttle services to and from the residential areas to their offices. They can't really be any more self-sufficient.
Re:Programming versus Software Engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed! Personally, I'm not planning on getting out of the industry, but I do plan to work only on projects using agile methods like Extreme Programming. Why? Because methods like XP tightly integrate the businesspeople and the techies in a way that is impossible if you're working in different time zones.
Not only is this more efficient than a document-driven process, but it's so much more flexible that you can keep ahead of your competitors using traditional processes. For projects that need speed and flexibility, outsourcers can't compete, whether they're in an Accenture office or in Bangalore.
Re:Programming versus Software Engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
No doubt the industry is changing but I do not think it is valid to lump every different kind of programmer or job into one category and say that it is being outsourced.
The most obvious outsourcing occurs in companies that have IT departments but are not in themselves a software development company. For instance, a bank and it's IT department. These IT departments are a commodity for the non-tech company and they are looking to satisfy that commodity at the cheapest possible price. And the types of jobs being exported are very basic types of programming that could be compared to the simple manufacturing jobs that are also exported.
This is a very different situation from a software company where the programmers are not considered a commodity. This might not be true for the very large software companies but that is also an indication of their dysfunction.
The jobs are flowing to India purely because of the low cost. As India develops a large middleclass due to this influx of money, wages will rise and the value proposition will worsen for India. That's when the jobs will start flowing to China. India is not necessarily in the best position, long term.
Re:Well, according to the last debate... (Score:3, Interesting)
It was interesting when Bush mentioned Howard being re-elected in Australia. He failed to mention that he only won because Australia's economy is booming. If its economy hadn't been, he probably would have lost by a large margin for getting involved in the war in Iraq (despite suffering 0 casualties and significantly lower costs than the US).
Re:Programming versus Software Engineering (Score:1, Interesting)
They'll tell you whatever you want to hear..
"Is the project going well ?".. yes sir !
"Can you develop this titanic project in 3 days ?".. Yes sir !
As you can imagine, the results are quite scary.
Also the other main issue i've seen is that like any other country, there's only so many good talented developers in India, and with the boom that has been going on there, the quality of the people they use have gone to hell, just like it did in western countries during the
Extinct or just moved ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hundreds of contract programmers are said to have left the UK to work abroad becuase of recent tax changes targeted at them. Right now in the UK I know of a number of _US_ programmers who have come here to work on major projects where apparently they can't find enough UK contractors. Probably (given it is a large multinational/US company) some of the work is also being outsourced from the UK back _in_ to the US.
Self-Employment (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, I don't want to be a programmer in five years. I've coded enough since 1996 and I'm sick of it. Time to move on. Owning my own company is the logical route for myself. I've witnessed enough dot bomb companies from the inside to know how not to run a business.
As I start to hire the people I need, I will make sure to hire American Citizens in the U.S.A.
More of us IT people that have business skills should do the same. More small companies that hire local employees helps the economy faster and better than stopping a few large companies from sending jobs overseas.
Take control of your future and act!
I won't be extinct (Score:5, Interesting)
I work on projects that require US citizenship, top secret clearance, polygraphs. There's no way my job or our work will ever be outsourced.
BTW, we're hiring in the Ft Meade, MD area...cleared or uncleared. Unfortunately, business is booming and we're behind the hiring curve for the year.
Re:An idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Gone? Unlikely (Score:3, Interesting)
Entire projects ARE being moved overseas- it's much cheaper to have your data center in Bangalore than it is to have it in Chicago.
Re:Well, according to the last debate... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Gone? Unlikely (Score:4, Interesting)
Their economy completely tanked a while back, it's what Greenspan was pointing at when he said: "Deflation is bad, we don't want to end up in the nasty cycle the Japanese are in".
I work in a programming gig, and in the end, I'm not extractable from my work place. Several people in the company want to offshore. However, the nuts and bolts guys in charge, understand that having a person onsite and available 24hrs a day, who see the day to day problems and can deal with them are priceless. Our entire software development cycle works because we can watch our users and see what they are doing that is silly that can be automated. Then we automate it.
Kirby
Re:Programming versus Software Engineering (Score:4, Interesting)
The previous company I worked for had a software development staff of more than 100, half of which are Indian. Most of them are still here. The ones that returned to India, still work for that company, in the Indian office, making a salary much higher than most Indians. Until salaries go up in India, the most experienced will always come to the US where they can make more money.
Re:Language issue (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Well, according to the last debate... (Score:4, Interesting)
True Cost ancedotes. Independent projects key. (Score:2, Interesting)
Last month I talked to a friend who is CEO of a company with about 100 software engineers in both Bangalore and Silicon Valley. He rated his India engineers better than his U.S. engineers. If he had to trim one location (he doesn't) it would be the U.S. On the topic of costs, he said that while the current pay rates are 5 Bangalore engineers to 1 Silicon Valley engineer, the real costs are closer. After taking into account extra overheads (e.g., travel) and loss of productivity caused by poor communications the current overall costs are more like 3.5 to 1. And due to rising salaries and costs in Bangalore he expects this to be 2 to 1 in a few years.
His key to making sure the loss of productivity on both ends didn't rise so far as to make it a negative sum game, was having good management at both ends capable of leading independent projects so less communications across the ocean would be needed.
BTW: USA Today just reprinted the story, so the Slashdot lead would have been better written as "The Christian Science Monitor reports ..." even though the original article [csmonitor.com]
is much the same.
Re:Accenture (Score:1, Interesting)
Working 18 hours a day 6 days a week for a few months and not getting anything other than survival wages tends to be a big demotivator.
Re:Programming versus Software Engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Programming versus Software Engineering (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not like there are a finite amount of industries that exist. For every auto/software industry "lost" in the United States a nanotechnology/bioinformatics industry gets created. Staying ahead, not on top, of industries seems to be what makes America powerful.
Re:Familiar Situation (Score:1, Interesting)
You have to think that eventually India will have all the engineering skills and start charging more. So eventually things will cost the same again except now India is making the money and setting the rules and not the US.
This is just another example of humans thinking about short term gain and not giving a rats ass about the future or our children.
Re:And Kerry said... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Programming versus Software Engineering (Score:2, Interesting)
I know plenty of America coders with Phd and Master who turn out crap.
Re:Another indian posing as a 'westerner' (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if the comp science world is similar to the manufacturing world. That is, I work for a large commercial airline company in Seattle and at one point was an engineer in the factory. There, the design engineers pummped out the designs and the "coolies" had to build the designs. And it never ceased to amaze me how much these "coolies" could teach the engineers about designing a "buildable" design.
Maybe it works different with software... I dunno
Re:Programming versus Software Engineering (Score:2, Interesting)
I am really wondering... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have been wondering, though - before I got fired, after, and even now - what if I hadn't been able to find a job? The truth is, there were several possibilities (heh, had one come in from guru.com this morning that looked like it would be a cool deal as a smalltime temp contract) - but it seems like those possibilities are dwindling. Maybe it is the economy - but then again, maybe programming is going away?
I am 31, I only have a "technical associates degree" from a small school, hardly any college experience (a couple of community college classes), no real degree. I also have a mortgage, bills and a family (well, my wife and a dog - no kids yet) to take care of. My main domain of knowledge is computing, in all of its forms - and programming specifically. This is what I love, this is what I do best. Given a job having to do with computers, an employer can expect me to work very hard to make them do what they want them to do. I know there are others that feel this way to.
I can't afford to go back to school - I don't have the time, I certainly don't have the money. I am living my life now, just wanting enough to be comfortable, and have a little fun now and then. So - serious question - what happens to a person like me if all the programming/computer jobs go away?
The outcome of such a situation doesn't seem rosy. I likely would end up in a job I would hate, doing something just to keep the roof over my head. That isn't the kind of life I am willing to lead - working at a job I hate for less money than I feel I am worth. I can't think of any job I would really like, that I have the knowledge or ability to do, that doesn't involve computers. There are jobs that I wouldn't mind doing - but I don't know if they exist, nor do I have the required experience for them even if they did?
One thing my wife and I discussed when this occurred was basically "chucking it all": Liquidating *all* of our assets, except for bare basics, buying a cheap RV, sticking the rest of the money in an account somewhere (and maybe some in an IRA) - and then becoming road hippies and travelling the continent. That would be a better life than a dead end unforgiving hateful job.
But seriously - are there other options for people in mine or similar situations? People who have little money to spend to educate themselves on the "next thing" (what is that, anyhow?) - I can't even think of a career path that won't suffer the same or similar fate as programming, etc. Becoming a lawyer, or a doctor, or a "healthcare professional", or a biotechnologist (yeah, I have the time and money for any of those - right)? About the only job I might have a shot at, that can't be off-shored, and people would need - would be either an air-conditioning repairman or auto-mechanic (and I still don't have the money to pay for such education). Plus, I don't relish the thought at doing either of those jobs (harsh and hazardous working conditions - though either one sounds somewhat interesting to do).
Ideas, comments, suggestions? All I can do right now is work as hard as I can doing what I know for what it is worth while I can still get a job (and, as I stated before, I did find work) - and save my money, get rid of all of my debt - and hope there is a way out...
Re:I am really wondering... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously though, I was laid off twice, 3 months the first time. That really put a dent in the old Visa. Looking back, I should have sold the house and moved to a small apartment so that I wouldn't go into debt so fast. The second time I was off for 1 month, and came out ahead on that one because of the severance pay.
Bush says this is what community colleges are for, but damned if a lot of us can afford to not get paid for 2 years while retooling for another job. That only makes sense if you can afford a 2 year vacation without pay. Unless you want to go way into debt while retooling, and that's not something the average family can afford to do.
Congrats on the new job!
Re:Yes, he did.....and (Score:4, Interesting)
We can only hope that Marx was horribly wrong and that we won't wake up one day to find that the poor people have had enough and either violently revolt or, if they grow enough to gain a majority, elect a Socialist government to screw the wealthy and middle class out of everything they have.
Offshoring = Snake Oil of the 2000's (Score:2, Interesting)
Deming and Juran were the false prophets of the great Quality Myth that companies believed in first, and Yourdon is their successor with his 'Decline and Fall'. (Yourdon tried to reverse himself with 'Rise & Resurrection' but I guess optimism isn't as believable as doom and gloom.) Offshoring is just the ignorant trying to fulfill Yourdon's original prophecy.
All myths (Score:3, Interesting)
The market for software developers is not standing still; it's growing tremendously. We're just not seeing it because a lot of new development is going overseas. However, there's no sign that the demand is going to slow down, and there's not an infinite number of tech workers overseas.
Already Indian workers are concerned about having their own tech bubble, as other countries start coming online with cheaper workers. China, Phillipines, and others are starting to take work away from India.
Further, despite claims to the contrary, it's not just as easy to move programming jobs overseas as it is for manufacturing jobs. Indian programmers aren't just plucked from the trees...they've gone through years of training and education just like we have. It costs a lot more time and money to train a programmer than to train an assembly-line worker. Again, there are not infinite resources available. It just seems that way because India has been building up a highly-trained workforce for a long time--without work to give them.
Our own tech boom and bust resulted in scads of untrained, unskilled workers getting paid too much to do too little. Reality check: there's no such thing as an HTML programmer. Writing VB is not going to earn you $50/hr. If you don't like what you're doing, you're not in the right line of work. The lion's share of jobs lost to offshoring are jobs that were filled by wannabes during the
Finally, as other posts have noted, the cost of paying a programmer is not the largest portion of developing software. Gathering requirements, testing, working with customers and clients, managing change, administering systems; all enter into it and have similar contributions to the overall cost. In the case of offshoring, almost all of these become more expensive...in some cases much more expensive.
Re:Defense Programming (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sorry if I came across as hostile. It isn't personal. I just live in a town that's seen a big upsurge of defense jobs and I greatly resent it. Especially when politicians are always excusing and promoting outsourcing by saying, "why not, if you can get the job done as good as, if not better." They're always implying that we're overpaid, underskilled workers, when America has the best programmers in the world. This country needs another Henry Ford to remind the CEOs that no one will be able to afford their products if we're all working at Walmart.
I guess I could always retrain. Haven't heard about what I should retrain for yet. I do get a laugh that a moron with no skills who was elected president is telling me that I'm not educated enough to get a job (well, actually I have one, but it won't last, I see people let go everyday). I guess the next step up is rocket science, although it doesn't look like NASA has a bright future either.
Re:Gone? Unlikely (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know about this. Sure, a few companies might have smart enough management to see this and stick with in-house talent, but it's amazing how stupid companies can be.
My Fortune 50 company still can't understand why having multiple design teams in locations around the globe, attempting to work with each other on the same project, is slow and inefficient. Currently, if we have a problem, we have to send an email and wait until the next day for a response; a smarter company would put everyone in the same building so they can talk to each other by walking down the hall instead.
Sure, the believers in the "market forces" religion will try to claim that companies like mine will go out of business, or be forced to change, by smarter companies that don't do it this way. But the reality of business is that size and inertia are far more important than intelligent management decisions. Eventually, all these bad decisions (like offshoring) add up, and lead to disaster.
And I'm not so sure about the Japanese economy having "completely tanked". Yes, they had a recession, but (and maybe I'm just out of touch here) I don't recall anything about millions of people out of work, people living on the street, people starving because they can't afford food, etc. That's what I think of when I think of a collapsed economy, like what happened in our Great Depression.
Re:My experience with different educational system (Score:3, Interesting)
That US education is getting dumber by the year has been one of my rants for a long time since I was once an architect and team lead who interviewed and recommended for hire. I could barely find recent US grads who could think let alone show up regular. I was glad to have older IT workers and HR-1Bs to get critical projects done. My best experiences have been with Taiwanese who have outshone the Chinese mainlanders by fact of better education, better life style, and greater motivation. No iron rice bowl in Taiwan.
Re:Programming versus Software Engineering (Score:1, Interesting)
Which of course means a big fat YES!
How long will it be before US Doctors and Surgeons are replaced with Telepresence equipment that will let the Indians and Chinese diagnose and operate on patients from halfway around the world- all for a third of what the US Doctor would be paid?
Whoa! (Score:3, Interesting)
"It's good to see that President Bush's plan to stimulate the economy is working so well."
No prizes for guessing where this journalist's sympathies lie. This blatant bias makes the whole article a little harder to swallow.
Vsprint wrote:
Do you really expect an American CEO to ever admit the multi-million dollar bonuses s/he recieved were based on a mistake?
Sure CEOs won't admit that offshoring their IT was a mistake but they can't keep making those mistakes forever. Offshoring will fall out of fashion along with all other management fads.
Offshoring and outsourcing are inherently bad for business*. Anybody on the ground level knows this. And these people are tomorrow's CEOs.
* A few reasons:
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Outsourcers don't answer to the same shareholders as their client. When
"maintenance typically consumes 40 to 80 percent (average, 60 percent) of software costs" [amazon.com] it's not exactly in an outsourcer's interests to provide maintenance-free software.
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Having software engineers onsite boosts productivity no end. When it is in the interest of those programmers to build the system correctly (ie, not outsourced), they can guide the customer's requirements when typically the customer does not really know what s/he wants.
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"Given a choice between paying $1 million per year for a team of 20 average developers or paying $1 million per year for a team of three outstanding developers, I'd choose the small team every time. The added bonus is that the
hidden overhead costs are much smaller with the smaller team - another benefit of using outstanding developers." [amazon.com] This kind of advice has been around for decades and it's still as true as it ever was.
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Contract negotiation is expensive. Litigation is even more expensive. It's cheaper to just get programmers who are aligned to your interests.
There are dozens of other good reasons but I am starting to get hoarse shouting...Re:Programming versus Software Engineering (Score:3, Interesting)
If one technology is exported overseas, another may be developed to take its place. People who no longer work in an industry that has been outsourced will be available to develop and support new industries. The fact that your poor neighbor gets a little wealthier does not automatically make you poorer.
The genius of American business has always been in dreaming up new technologies, having the willingness to fail and try again at realizing them, and filtering the results through a (relatively) free market to eliminate all but the truly useful and beneficial ones.
To the extent that restrictive IP laws interfere with that process, I agree that there is a real danger.
Competition from the rest of the world could be regarded as a further filter on our technological development which forces us to reallocate effort from mature and commoditized technologies (with low margin) to into ones that are just emerging (high margin).
Personally, I would love it if we could create so many technologies and services that every working person in every country of the world could be as well off as a middle-class American. Perhaps that is too much to dream.
Re:Would you stop it about the H1Bs? (Score:2, Interesting)
But I guess that Warren Buffet doesn't have "even a trivial background in international economics."