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India To Overtake US On Number of Developers By 2017 157

dcblogs writes "There are about 18.2 million software developers worldwide, a number that is due to rise to 26.4 million by 2019, a 45% increase, says Evans Data Corp. in its latest Global Developer Population and Demographic Study. Today, the U.S. leads the world in software developers, with about 3.6 million. India has about 2.75 million. But by 2018, India will have 5.2 million developers, a nearly 90% increase, versus 4.5 million in the U.S., a 25% increase though that period, Evans Data projects. India's software development growth rate is attributed, in part, to its population size, 1.2 billion, and relative youth, with about half the population under 25 years of age. Rapid economic growth is fueling interest in development. India's services firms hire, in many cases, thousands of new employees each quarter. Consequently, IT and software work is seen as clear path to the middle class for many of the nation's young. For instance, in one quarter this year, Tata Consultancy Services added more than 17,000 employees, gross, bringing its total headcount to 263,600. In the same quarter of 2010, the company had about 150,000 workers."
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India To Overtake US On Number of Developers By 2017

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    • As long as the US has Nerf superiority, we will rule the cubicles. They can take our plush toys, but they will never take our freedom... management did that a long time ago.
  • by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @02:43PM (#44242711) Journal

    ~nt~

    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @02:47PM (#44242777)

      This exactly. What are all these developers doing? I don't see an explosion of Indian-made software that matches these numbers.

      • by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @03:01PM (#44242945)

        What are all these developers doing?

        In my experience, they're ensuring that U.S. developers have poorly-designed software to fix.

      • by pspahn ( 1175617 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @03:02PM (#44242947)

        That's because the software they help write has already been branded by a start up in LA or New York.

        The stuff you do see them building is plugins and modules for various platforms where they can take the idea of another developer, add a new logo and what not, and repackage it for sale as their code.

        I have worked with many different "One Step Checkout" for the Magento platform that were developed in India. They are all basically copies of each other, with only one version (developed I believe in Ukraine) standing out as being solidly developed and easy to work with.

        • Having lived there for a short while, this seems to be on par with just about everything India produces. India is no threat to the US
      • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        In my experience most software is Indian-made, you just didn't realize it because it has an American brand name on it.

        (also, most of the comments on this thread seem pretty racist to me)

        • (also, most of the comments on this thread seem pretty racist to me)

          Sigh...that didn't take long.

          My dear fellow, you need to comment out the hard-coded link in your head between disparaging comments about nations and disparaging comments about ethnicities and replace it with some logic in compliance with best practices developed in, among other places, the American software industry.

      • by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @04:18PM (#44243861) Homepage

        You don't see what's happening on the back-end and they don't want you do know. Most consulting companies are now a shim layer of local people who outsource the actual coding, that's at least how Accenture, Deloitte, PWC, Ernst & Young, KPMG, Capgemini, McKinsey etc. operate. Other big companies just go directly to Indian consulting companies like Tata or get their own local staff in India. Locally, they still have the same brands, the same "local" image but in reality they're getting Indians to take over piece by piece. In-house development is slowly being phased out, in reality what's left is a sales front like a sophisticated version of Walmart. I was at an interview for a position like that, I'd be the only local resource and leader keeping up appearances while eight people in India would be doing all the actual work. Didn't get the job and in retrospect glad I didn't.

        • by Rob Y. ( 110975 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @05:04PM (#44244409)

          It's worse that just the offshoring aspect.

          When my company decided to outsource, they fired pretty much all the local developers except for one 'business analyst' who knows the code and how it works. That wasn't me, but they also kept me on as a 'consultant' to the outsourcers so something still gets done and the whole project can be viewed as something other than a total failure. The Indian devs were not great, but I figured that at least they'd be captive. Prior to outsourcing the company had taken to hiring (cheap) young programmers, and (surprise!) had a retention problem. But Indian programmers are 'happy just to have a job', right? Wrong - if anything, they're more mobile than their American counterparts, because the big outsourcing firms want it that way. They're constantly moving people off of our project, and bringing in new people to learn it all on our dime.

          So the one expected productivity benefit is not there - but it's even worse. Since these guys don't hang around, there is no next generation coming up with the in-depth knowledge of these products to become the 'business analysts' and senior devs to replace us. So when I and the other guy who are still sustaining the whole contraption retire (and we're both older than 55), the whole thing sinks. Prior to outsourcing, there were other dev's with seniority that could've stepped in to take our places.

          In today's world of perverse incentives, though, this isn't a 'problem'. The company is owned by a private equity firm that expects to dump it long before that final crash. But if I were a private equity firm looking to buy a piece of crap like this, I'd certainly ask what plans exist to produce the next generation of senior techs to keep the place going. As it is, it's musical chairs, at some point a buyer will get stuck with no chairs left.

          • by allcoolnameswheretak ( 1102727 ) on Thursday July 11, 2013 @02:34AM (#44247891)

            I agree on your points. The employee turnover in many outsourcing firms is unsustainable for major, longer projects. However sometimes the unreliability and the cultural gap are even greater nuisance than the high fluctuation or the low quality results. I found that asian developers will often claim that everything is understood and fine, when in fact they barely understand requirements and are having great difficulty finding a solution. As if admitting to difficulties or asking questions is a sign of weakness or incompetence. Development will drag on like this until someone on the team starts to heavily inquire on their progress and figures out that they don't really know what they're doing.
            In one company I worked for in the past, we once had two green card workers (or the German equivalent of that) from India. They stayed in Germany and worked at our company for one month, when they left everyone stumped because they decided to go back home to 'marry'. That was the official explanation at least. I still don't get it, because at that time the barriers for green card workers in Germany was very high -they had to earn more than about 64000€ to be accepted- which must have been a fortune to someone from India.

            There are many aspects which make outsourcing software development a lot less feasible than many managers would like to believe. The main one in my opinion is that software development is very complex work and requires -a lot- of communication and coordination. It doesn't help if your workers are spread across several time zones and barely speak your language. However the most overlooked aspect are the cultural differences.

          • But if I were a private equity firm looking to buy a piece of crap like this, I'd certainly ask what plans exist to produce the next generation of senior techs to keep the place going. As it is, it's musical chairs, at some point a buyer will get stuck with no chairs left.

            Thanks. Insightful, refreshingly non-racist and in my experience totally true.

            I've seen the same thing many times, especially when doing "due dilligence".
            The trouble is, the financial guys don't like it when you put it on the risk log with a big dollar number next to it.
            The head of IT is swiftly wheeled in to present great things like "technology roadmaps" and "contingency plans", (which are normally complete BS), and the entire thing is swept under the carpet.

    • by c0lo ( 1497653 )
      Quality or mushroom? [slashdot.org]
      (if you don't have enough quantity, it's highly likely you will not have quality. A small quantity is likely to mean: nobody is interested. Thus... it's a snaaake!)
  • by gpronger ( 1142181 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @02:46PM (#44242755) Journal
    Could part of this be the cost of college here in the States? Also, would be the question, that a decade ago, a position in software development was seen by HS age individuals as strong career move; is that still the case (I think not).
    • by SirGarlon ( 845873 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @02:53PM (#44242833)

      I am not convinced the US has a problem. TFA projects the number of developers in the US will grow by 25% over the same 5-year period, which is pretty darned robust. That growth looks feeble only by comparison to India.

      • Indeed. How about letting us know when India has 400% as many developers as the United States, which is just about an equal proportion of the population.
      • I am not convinced the US has a problem.

        Edit: I am not convinced the US has a problem with *the growth in number of developers.* It has lots of other problems. :-)

        • I am not convinced the US has a problem.

          Edit: I am not convinced the US has a problem with *the growth in number of developers.* It has lots of other problems. :-)

          One of which is that a company can save loads of money by offshoring all their development to some place where they can pay them in bottle caps.

          • Should have been "one of which is *the perception* that..."

          • The Capitol Wasteland?

            "Yeah, I'll do your coding job for 1000 caps and those 30 rounds of .44 caliber ammunition"

          • by Anonymous Coward

            India isn't cheap anymore is the problem. China is quickly becoming not cheap as well. American developers are absolutely cheaper then Taiwanese, South Korean, or Japanese developers. Maybe you can start outsourcing to Nigeria or Pakistan if you want ultra cheap labor for your programming needs.

            or bring it back to the US to Mississippi or Alabama. The people are dirt poor, not very well educated, and still have the accent problem, but at least the time zone and payment issue is easier to deal with.

            (I am

            • by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @04:42PM (#44244167) Journal

              India isn't cheap anymore is the problem. China is quickly becoming not cheap as well. American developers are absolutely cheaper then Taiwanese, South Korean, or Japanese developers. Maybe you can start outsourcing to Nigeria or Pakistan if you want ultra cheap labor for your programming needs.

              or bring it back to the US to Mississippi or Alabama. The people are dirt poor, not very well educated, and still have the accent problem, but at least the time zone and payment issue is easier to deal with.

              (I am a developer in MS, and I am not sure if I should be happy or sad that my Indian Counterparts have a better quality of life then I do)

              If I'm understanding this, one possible conclusion is that offshoring is to a certain extent self-leveling. Offshoring your development causes prices in that market to increase, and prices in local markets to decrease. At some point offshoring no longer makes economic sense, and there might be a general tendency to migrate back to dirt-poor onshore communities, paying them in cigarette wrappers instead of bottle caps, I guess. And so the wrecking ball swings back and forth.

              In the meantime, someone local at the company has to deal with the ramifications of code generated on milk crates in a lean-to made of roped together tin sheets.

      • by pspahn ( 1175617 )

        The US will still have plenty of developer jobs, though, it may get retitled to reflect the fact that the work done in India is development. The work done in the US is simply refactoring, adding legible comments, fixing poorly named variables, etc.

        The last few months of my previous job were basically nothing more than fixing bugs introduced by the Indian team. Good training I suppose, but not my cup of tea.

        • Sounds like a tremendous opportunity for US devs. The more crapware that comes out of India, the more cleanup that needs to happen, and as a result, the more opportunities for US devs to make a living doing work that may otherwise not have been available.

          Yeah, there is the question of whether that time and effort could have been productively used or not. But the argument here would be similar to the ones that have been run about Windows in the past. Due to all the bugs in Windows, as well as malware, y

      • India will grow 90% over the next 5 years, almost double. At that rate in in 45-50 years everyone in India will be a software developer.

      • Guess what... a lot of that is probably people on H1-B visas, who will very often work more hours for less pay. It's not that the number of American developers will grow by 25%, simply that the number of developers in the US will grow by 25%.

    • Well CS is not IT and trades / apprenticeship / tech schools get over looked.

      As well loads of fluff and filler classes.

      To many people are going to collgle and colleges are turning out people with skills gaps.

    • Could part of this be the cost of college here in the States?

      I think the percentage of college students who major in a technical field such as CS or engineering has been decreasing.

    • by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @03:52PM (#44243535)

      And most of them made horrible developers. There's basic bits of theory and knowledge that most (not all, but most) self taught and high school educated developers never learn. The move to requiring a CS degree wasn't due to degree inflation, it was to get more knowledgeable developers.

  • by Z_A_Commando ( 991404 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @02:50PM (#44242805)
    When one country has a billion more people than another country, what do you expect? A better comparison would be the percentage of the population for each country who are considered developers.
    • Yes as for percentage by population the US would be more than double. Also it can't all be outsource they have to be developing something for their own 1.2 billion possible consumers.

    • Thats the same thing i was thinking as well. It seems pretty logical that a country with a much larger population is going to have more people working in a certain field, simply because they have more people.
  • I'm a little concerned about the growing "influence" of Indian programmers. First, like all groups, when they are the majority they can become biased against others (i.e. non-indian). Second, they are willing to work for less, so they can push down salaries; just look the consulting rates these days.
    To be fair, it has been a pleasure to work with them, for them etc. I don't see any alternative to employing them. I don't want them to go away. But there is a cultural adjustment that I feel is necessary but
    • Second, they are willing to work for less, so they can push down salaries; just look the consulting rates these days..

      What rates are you observing these days?

      • by swframe ( 646356 )
        I used to see rates in the $100/hr+ in the SF bayarea. When I consulted in the dot com bubble, it was expected that consulting rates would be double a full-time salary. Not any more.
        Recently, I've seen rates in the $50/hr to $60/hr range. But my 27 year-old friend has a full-time bayarea job that pays $180k so it makes no sense to take a $50/hr contract without benefits, vacation, etc.
        The connection to 'Indian programmer' is that most of the recruiters I run into are indian and state strongly that a $10
    • it has been a pleasure to work with them

      Who is them? Are you talking about immigrants, H-1B's, or people in India? This discussion has everything to do with location and economics, and nothing to do with ethnicity.

      • by swframe ( 646356 )
        "They" are Indians on H-1B/immigrants that work at major software companies like google, oracle, yahoo, etc. I'm also not concerned/worried with their ethnicity or their culture. It is truly a pleasure to work with the programmers from India that I've met. I've, however, noticed that they can form work teams/groups in which there are no non-indian members (or no non-indian lead developers). Maybe it is because there are few non-indian developers applying for a position in their group but I suspect it is mor
        • I've, however, noticed that they can form work teams/groups in which there are no non-indian members (or no non-indian lead developers). ... I've also noticed, in my conversations with them, that they feel that non-indian developers are not as smart as indian developers. ... When those India developers form a team/group, they can get to a state where they don't feel a non-indian developer is good enough to join them. ... I don't think the minority non-indian developer in majority indian group will not get the same opportunities as the indian members.

          What you're describing is prejudice and discrimination, plain and simple. Were a white American man to even hint at doing something like that, he'd have his head handed to him (and deservedly so). I think such a standard of conduct should apply to everyone.

          • I guess you haven't heard about the emphasis on "diversity" in hiring, the way that can play out day to day, and the prevalence of ageism in IT fields. Good luck with that.

  • This is great news! Today's Dilbert is relevant. [dilbert.com]
  • So that's 2-3 more million "developers" that don't know what they are doing. Seriously, how many of these new so-called developers really know what they are doing and can code with a passion as opposed to those that are in it just to get a paycheck and hope they can CYA wrt to bugs.
    • And that's unique to India, how?

      • by CQDX ( 2720013 )
        It isn't unique to India. Never said that. But it does become a problem from my end (the US) because India is pretty much the out-sourcing capital so if/when my company decides to shift some development and testing over there, I have to deal with their sub-par work.
      • And that's unique to India, how?

        It's not, it's just much more prevalent in India because the culture there has not attached a negative social stigma to being a tech worker.

  • by Old VMS Junkie ( 739626 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @03:06PM (#44242983)
    As long as they're willing to work for peanuts, regardless of the crap they produce, US CEOs will keep hiring them. I'm watching an outsourcing fiasco in progress at my company. The "smartsourced" apps are blowing up like crazy and executive management screams at the PMs and middle management, neither of which wanted these barely-trained, fundamentally incompetent programmers to begin with.
  • Our outsourcing "partners" in India cost about .25 of what an average American developer would cost. They earn far less as the outsourcing pimp takes their cut. I don't predict that the amount of developer jobs will grow at the same pace as the amount of developers. Therefore I predict the affect will be that wages are suppressed further, probably resulting in poorer quality of developers.
  • Every time there is a bit of news about H1Bs or immigration on tech sites, most Americans display their usual xenophobia and blame immigrants for the lack of jobs in the US.

    At the same time, every single of them fails to realize that there isn't even a need for foreigners to be in America to take away their jobs.

    There are plenty of countries with great universities, which are either free or where students don't have to pay with their life for tuition. India is one of the most extreme examples, but pla
    • by sapgau ( 413511 )
      And how is this related to the quality of programmers on ANY country?
    • by ebno-10db ( 1459097 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @04:04PM (#44243669)

      Every time there is a bit of news about H1Bs or immigration on tech sites, most Americans display their usual xenophobia and blame immigrants for the lack of jobs in the US.

      Dismissing legitimate economic concerns as "xenophobia" is either a false assumption on your part, or a common but cheap trick. Sorry, ain't buying it.

      At the same time, every single of them fails to realize that there isn't even a need for foreigners to be in America to take away their jobs.

      True only to a certain extent. Being on-site, meeting face-to-face, and understanding more about a customer and a culture so that you can be more than a code monkey, are still useful.

      The quantity over quality argument is also moot, foreigners not only keep improving but their low cost allows them to make mistakes while still being more affordable than Americans.

      Of course "their low cost allows them to make mistakes while still being more affordable than Americans". It's the very fact that they do make so many mistakes that's part of why they're so affordable! If what you meant was that some people will always buy cheap crap, then that's an obvious truism. Whether or not that's penny wise and pound foolish is another story.

      As for "foreigners not only keep improving", or more accurately the quality of foreign sourced work keeps improving, I've found just the opposite to be true. I don't know why, or even why the foreign sourced work is often of such poor quality, and I have little interest in debating theories about why. What I do know is that it's true.

      would rather to have that people live, contribute and keep most the industry in your country

      No, not if it means sacrificing my job for that. Save the "it's good for the country as a whole" garbage for the congressional hearings. Bonus points for honesty if you say "for the good of the American economy we must screw American programmers, IT people and engineers". Really, go ahead and say it, because it won't matter. The hearings are a formality and congress will just vote however the people that bribe them want congress to vote.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        The deeper question is "Why is it OK for the rest of the world to be xenophobic when the same is disallowed for the Anglosphere?" There has been a war on the white male since the signing of Hart Celler by LBJ in 1965.

        --
        You can't handle the truth...because the truth is RACIST!

        • by ebno-10db ( 1459097 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @06:15PM (#44245157)

          There has been a war on the white male since the signing of Hart Celler by LBJ in 1965.

          As a white American man who has been around since the civil rights era, I must say I've never noticed that. If they're waging war against me, they're sure doing a lousy job.

          The deeper question is "Why is it OK for the rest of the world to be xenophobic when the same is disallowed for the Anglosphere?"

          There is no such deeper question because xenophobia, by or against whomever, has nothing to do with this subject. It's about economics. It's the H-1B proponents who frame it as a xenophobia issue, and thus try to distract from what's really at stake.

          BTW, it's not clear how excessive guest workers in a particular field targets white males. It targets Americans in the 99%. Last time I checked though, not all Americans are white, and they're not all male. Get your categories straight.

          • by Xest ( 935314 )

            "There is no such deeper question because xenophobia, by or against whomever, has nothing to do with this subject. It's about economics. It's the H-1B proponents who frame it as a xenophobia issue, and thus try to distract from what's really at stake."

            I disagree. I did a long analysis on that before (I'm non-US and have no interest in moving to the US so was able to approach the issue objectively) and basically if anything H1-B hires are increasing US salaries because H1-B highers are more often than not ge

        • by goruka ( 1721094 )

          There has been a war on the white male since the signing of Hart Celler by LBJ in 1965

          Not to go offtopic, but the southern cone (Chile, Uruguay, Argentina), and East Europe are mostly white.. and huge outsourcer for American and European jobs.

      • by goruka ( 1721094 )

        True only to a certain extent. Being on-site, meeting face-to-face, and understanding more about a customer and a culture so that you can be more than a code monkey, are still useful.

        I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Companies don't offshore the code monkeys, they offshore entire experienced teams, including their leadership and creative talent. As I said, India is an extreme, but other locations like South America and Eatern Europe are much more in tune culturally, or time-zone wise.

        Of course "their low cost allows them to make mistakes while still being more affordable than Americans". It's the very fact that they do make so many mistakes that's part of why they're so affordable! If what you meant was that some people will always buy cheap crap, then that's an obvious truism.

        The only truism here is that you don't have a single clue about how the outsourcing industry works. I was trying to explain that people outside learns and becomes really good, yet still much more aff

        • Companies don't offshore the code monkeys, they offshore entire experienced teams, including their leadership and creative talent.

          I hear that claimed, but from what I've seen delivered it's hard to believe it's true. Regardless, it doesn't completely eliminate the need for, as I said, "on-site, meeting face-to-face, and understanding more about a customer". If it did then you wouldn't see vast numbers of people working, for example, for Infosys in the US (mostly H-1B, B-1 and L-1 of course).

          India is an extreme, but other locations like South America and Eatern Europe are much more in tune culturally, or time-zone wise.

          The amount of outsourcing to India is vastly greater than to South America or Eastern Europe.

          I was trying to explain that people outside learns and becomes really good

          Try harder next time. I was making fun of the fact th

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Calling an argument xenophobic does not dismiss it. Rather it is an assertion that one (or more) of your premises is an kneejerk emotional fear response.

        Some people think those are valid, apparently.

  • by Chas ( 5144 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @03:12PM (#44243047) Homepage Journal

    Sorry, the educational system over there is little more than a diploma mill.

    The quality of developers over there is somewhere between "bad" and "not qualified to sell slurpees".

    Yes, as with any group, there's always the exceptions. A few, here and there, with a knack for doing good, solid work.
    But that's just what they are. Exceptions.

    Anyone can play baseball/football/soccer/hockey.

    A much smaller contingent of the population do it well.

    An even smaller contingent of that sub-population do it well enough to warrant getting paid to do it.

  • by stillpixel ( 1575443 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @03:34PM (#44243317) Homepage Journal
    But, my current experience has been much the same as many here have stated.

    Many Indian developers seem to me to lack some critical thinking skills when it comes to working on projects. Perhaps it's a cultural issue that needs to be worked out, but it's like they know how to code.. but there is no thinking going on besides blindly following a written requirement without asking questions or trying to get clarity on something that isn't clear. Instead they code code and code until they are 'done' only to have wasted time coding something that doesn't actually meet the requirement because they didn't ask questions.

    But then again.. I am dealing with developers who aren't Indian.. and well they suck too.. but I can't tell if it's their incompetence, their project manager's or just their whole company.
    • by Sri Ramkrishna ( 1856 ) <sriram.ramkrishn ... m ['il.' in gap]> on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @11:42PM (#44247097)
      Actually you're right. The problem is that Indian education tends to emphasize memorizing and rote. Concepts are memorized and repeated back without really understanding what it means. I have gone through both American and Indian educations. I've spent most of my schooling in the U.S. however. Let me demonstrate the difference in an anecdote:

      1) When I was in India, I had to take a history class. I love history. I wrote a paper in an exam, and I had not only put in the answer as I saw it, but also my personal observations and some speculations. I didn't do well in those answers because tehy weren't exactly the answer in the group. Since the person grading itself probably doesn't more than the group, how do you grade it?

      2) I took a course in American history. I wrote with great gusto, exactly same mentality. I not only got one of the top scores in the class, but I had a lot of comments regarding the answer. They loved my answers and my grasp for history. People recognize when you like or love a subject and will grade accordingly.

      You can also see this mentality in action when you talk with Indian developers. They will want only enough information to get the job done and specifically to that task. They will do nothing more, and might even try to do less. If you try to provide a concept or something it is met with impatience. If the Indian system of education were to change to alllow students to challenge their teachers then it would be a better educational system. Teachers must actually know the subject they are teaching.

      Now there is nothing cultural about this. What's happened is that the asian custom of respecting your elders takes precedence over learning. But in the holy books there is nothing like that. Veda Vyasa was challenged by his students or even by Lord Ganesha as well. There is nothing wrong with questioning and Hinduism always shows devotee questioning the Lord. So, it's something stupid that has been warped.

  • by Wokan ( 14062 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @03:42PM (#44243419) Journal

    I'm not saying India doesn't have any developers, but I have seen a lot of programming defined as copying and pasting the code of someone else and testing that it "works as required". I couldn't understand why the JavaScript countdown timer we were supplied by an Indian company was written in Spanish until I caught on to how they "fulfilled" their contract obligations. I'm sure a lot of that goes on in every country with programmers (and developers). My point here is that we should be careful how we define developer vs programmer (not to mention the ongoing debates regarding the phrase "software engineer").

  • then we have nothing to fear from the developers. I am bombarded with "job offers", usually 3-5 a week, always from Indian people/firms who are completely illiterate. Over the past 5 or so years I've gone from politely declining, to ignoring, to insulting, to now intentionally misleading them and stringing them along just like 419 scammers.
  • I probably use some software with Indian work done on it. But I dont recall anything originated and marketed in India. But I expect soemthing to come sometime.
  • We can double the number of developers here in the US right now... problem is half of them are going to f'in horrible at it. The total number doesn't matter but the quality does.
  • are half of these posts thinly veiled racism? I used to get annoyed when people made broad statements that my countrymen are xenophobic, but if that's the persona we use online maybe we deserve the moniker.

    • Re:Is it me or... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by betterprimate ( 2679747 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @05:38PM (#44244799)
      It's not racism. It's resentment and entirely justified. From my experience, here's how it grows:

      1) Bids and proposals are submitted to American client 2) Middle management of said American client decides to go with lowest bidder (typically from India) 3) Lowest bidder can't satisfy contract due to incompetence 4) 1 year later, project still can't satisfy requirements. 5) American client back peddles to find American developers to fix and complete project 6) American developers review the code... it's a steaming pile of shit. 7) If American developers have sense, they decline the project and quote the client for the whole project

      Now, if you're working in-house, the same thing happens except that you can't politely decline the project and are forced to deliver on a steaming pile of shit and you have to have your name attached to garbage.

      It's not racism. Developers are objective; if it were good, quality code there wouldn't be any pushback or resentment.
      • I'm developer. I can tell you that developers are not objective about their own egos.

        • I'm a developer too. I agree the young developers have ego issues. But there's an ocean's difference between ego and racism. The resentment I addressed is not racially influence; it's also compounded by the current state of corporate affairs. When someone is not valued for their work, something internally happens. Ego is one thing, it can easily be put into check; but when a developer is not valued nor capable of being assessed, then that egotistical pushback becomes something real and tangible. It becomes

          • Yes, ego is not racism. That comment was only to respond to "Developers are objective". Overgeneralization and stereotyping might be a nicer way to describe open racism. I work with plenty of experienced developers who have a confidence in thier abilities that is not warranted from the quality of their work or from their [lack of] professionalism on the job.

            • There is a truth in what you're saying. When it comes to self, I have seen many developers unable to be objective oriented or have a self-corrective mechanism when it comes to relating to the "real" world. From my observations, their social mechanisms were solidified prematurely. What was once their escapism became their trade; in some ways they never had a chance to grow.

              I believe in this industry we need more humility. I think teaching developers the defensive modes of business (e.g. writing proposals, pr

  • US developers will ALWAYS have more creativity...that is what counts. Support...India rules. Design/new ideas...USA BABY!
  • Once you get outside the realm of graduates from the IIT schools, the quality is not very good. Don't believe me? Go ask almost anyone who has worked with an H1-B software engineer when they first arrived? Add to that the incredible inefficiencies and top-down authoritarian environment of most Indian software shops - independent thinking is not even considered.
    • by zenyu ( 248067 )

      India today is more akin to Japan in 1945 than Japan in 1975. I've worked with a dozens of Indian developers when some shops in India reported to me. Only a few were worth their salt. With few exceptions those were western trained developers that were forced to go back to India by family obligations. Of the good ones, one was a woman who I think was later fired for being a woman (after I left) and the other never got the training he needed but was boosted to Sr. Dev prematurely. On the other hand, great dev

      • I can understand systems administrators. They have to think on their feet, and they need to know how to resolve things quickly. It's not like some coding project where they can delay or make up deadlines or something. Something is down, it needs to be resolved right now. People who are just fucking around will simply be fired since people have to work.
  • h1b visas (Score:4, Insightful)

    by superwiz ( 655733 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @09:49PM (#44246473) Journal
    No, I am not a dumb ass. H1B visas is what drives Americans out of of this profession. If they are good enough to get an H1B visa, they are good enough to have an unconditional Green Card. No, this is not a security threat. Physical presence of person in a place is what constitutes or doesn't constitute a security threat -- not the papers they hold. As long as a companies can hire people who work under threat of deportation rather than under threat of getting fired, those companies are not hiring employees. They are hiring indentured servants. In fact, if there were a test case, it would have a pretty chance of SCOTUS saying the same thing. And as long as Americans have to compete with indentured servants on work conditions (never mind on salary), they will not want to work in this profession. Give them Green Cards so that they have the option of saying "no" to 14 hour work days. Then Americans will want to do the same work.
  • Generally, India's money should be at about 30 rupees to the dollar. It is now over 65. that is because they are directly manipulating against the dollar.
    This has gotten old.
  • by goruka ( 1721094 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2013 @10:40PM (#44246775)
    I'll explain in more detail how all this happens in the real world.

    I reside in South America. The big American companies opened up shop here a long, long time ago. IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Citrix, Cisco, Capgemini, KPMG, etc. Every single of them is here and own several skyscrapers. There is a good education level here and university is often free or cheap, so there is a large pool of potential hires. By the time most americans heard about outsourcing, there was already a huge outsourcing industry in place here.

    They started by bringing managers from other regions with experience and hire entire local teams. The teams are cheaper to hire, (or the governments offer tax exceptions in exchange of know how transfer) here are trained and put to work. The work done is pretty much the same that they do at the headquarters, except outsourcing allows them to scale. Sometimes they work for other local clients, sometimes they work for American clients. A plane ticket is cheap anyway.
    Teams started with little experience, and are allowed to do a few mistakes, but quickly gained experience and become competitive with other regions.
    Once the team is experienced enough, the leaders are sent to new, nearby regions to start over while the company expands. It's the same in Asia, probably an order of magnitude worse.

    So, for the companies, this is really profitable of course. For the American jobs this is devastating, but you guys can't see what you don't know, and keep believing your lack of jobs is due to the tiny amount of foreigners on H1B. H1Bs don't even compare! Outsourcing worldwide is in the order of millions while H1Bs are in the order of thousands.

    So, yes, It's true. To all Americans reading this, I'm out there and I see every day how outsourcing steals your jobs much more dramatically than immigrants, but you are free to believe your own self-comforting lies, and keep thinking that outsourcing was just about hiring a bunch of retarded indians that are so stupid that it's impossible they will do code right, so your jobs must be safe because at this point everyone in the industry must have realized how retarded foreigners are.
  • I am from India. I have worked both in India and US on Software Projects for major/minor/start up's and what not. As a group Indian software developers are as competent or incompetent as anyone else. Any generalization is only lazy stereotyping.
    The antagonism US developers/engineers show towards Indians should STOP. Period. At some level we are all brothers. The Indian H1Bs who got Green Cards and settled in US - thinking that will be better future - will be seriously unhappy when they know after they hit
  • by Anonymous Coward

    I am an Indian Programmer/developer/IT guy. I can contribute my story and hope its relevant. The beginning of my career is typical. I am bachelors in Electrical Engineering. I always 'liked' electricity. I did not have a computer till I was 20 something. I did have lots of broken electronics though and used to make little hobby circuits. I did not design the circuits but copied them from magazines/books. I kind of understood why they worked but not really. I always wanted to 'get it'. My questions which we

  • I have the proof written down here on an envelop , let me see if I can find it now...

  • Horizontal transmission evolves virulence. Immobile victims increase the potential virulence achieved by horizontal transmission [ted.com]. The "moral zeitgeist" that Dawkins loves [youtube.com] so much is a perfect fit to evolve virulence -- that moral zeitgeist being enforced borders are the ultimate evil -- worse than child molestation by an HIV vector without a condom. Therefore, as this moral zeitgeist is increasingly enforced everywhere in the world, you are either going to be (virtually) eaten by virulent critters that m

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