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Interesting read for any programmer in the U.S.

Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2004 5:29 pm
by JPlush76
Interesting Read:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/india.html

8 page article on the migration of jobs from the U.S. to India and why.


United States
Typical salary for a programmer $70,000

India
Typical salary for a programmer $8,000

Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2004 6:51 pm
by jason
Hehe, the benefits of being self-employed. I won't really lay myself off. =)

Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2004 6:56 pm
by jason
I have more to say, and this time, really say something constructive.

Yeah, $8000 seems great. But let's consider other cheap things, like the Yugo. The Yugo was a cheap car. Hence, it must be great, right?

Wrong!

I have spoken with several guys who worked with people in other countries. They outsourced the work because it was so cheap. But their is a reason, and it's not just cost of living. When your programmers are half a world away, what kind of accountability do they have. Is the quality the same? Can they speak and understand English well enough (and this means the entire team, not just the guy you speak with)? These are important questions.

One of the guys who outsourced said he wouldn't do it again. He gave me the Yugo scenario, and said that the programmers would good, and gave him what he wanted. But it wasn't of the quality, and the communcation wasn't there. He had to spend time cleaning up the software, to make it production ready, and in the end, felt that it would have been just better to have gotten someone local to do the job for him.

Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2004 1:02 pm
by Weirdan
jason wrote:I have spoken with several guys who worked with people in other countries. They outsourced the work because it was so cheap. But their is a reason, and it's not just cost of living. When your programmers are half a world away, what kind of accountability do they have. Is the quality the same? Can they speak and understand English well enough (and this means the entire team, not just the guy you speak with)? These are important questions.
The situation changes to opposite when you need the product for international market. Have you ever tried to adopt the "native English" program to, say, Russian language in KOI8-R encoding? I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't ever heard about KOI8 ;) Nah, quite often the guys don't look beyond the ASCII. :?

Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2004 1:40 pm
by JAM
Also, outsourcing can go wrong no matter where (or to whom) the work ends up.
You can have your work outsourced to the neighbour county and still get foo in return. Of course, lawsuits and the not to uncommon 'drive-there-and-talk-sence-to-them" type of approach are abit easier in this case.

Speaking of India and language...
Of personal experience I feel that those I've talked to are very fluent in the english language, the majority much better than me. Before you say "that doesn't say much" have in mind that I have no problem getting by using either technical terms nor ordinary english (as far as I'm aware of that is!).

Having Weirdans post in mind; thank god for the open source community. Of course, that would not apply so much when running your own ExpertCoding.com company, but just to have it as an option is nice. Language/translation files are more or less a rule today...

Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2004 2:09 pm
by infolock
I for one think that the US should pass a law that says they cannot hire over-seas people to do their work..

It's not only telling the programmers of the US that they don't want them here, but it's also keeping the job market right at non-existance level for the rest uf os..

Re: Interesting read for any programmer in the U.S.

Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2004 2:37 pm
by ol4pr0
JPlush76 wrote:Interesting Read:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/india.html

8 page article on the migration of jobs from the U.S. to India and why.


United States
Typical salary for a programmer $70,000

India
Typical salary for a programmer $8,000
i would like to add this one:

Ecuador
Typical salary for a programmer $7000 *maximum*

Next Step

Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2004 2:47 pm
by randomblink
I mean you all realize that eventually it won't be the coders making the money... With open source, and now over-seas job transferance going on, the money maker in the future will be the program operators with coding experience, so they can adjust on-the-fly...

As long as there are people able and willing to code for $7,000.00/year... Jobs for programmers state-side will spiral to nothing... Of course, eventually, having custom-programs will require people who can master them... Ah well... We shall see...

Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:56 pm
by McGruff
It's got to be a good thing if cash from rich, cadillac guzzling nations (like the US) gets redistributed to 3rd world countries (like here in the UK:) ).

I don't really want to live in a f*** you world where groups of countries can head off into the sunset while others starve. Job migration is one of the checks and balances (such as they are) which helps to share out resources.

Of course, I'd still be hacked off if I lost a job to a budget competitor (like I did recently - location unkown). But I'd accept it. Once I'd stopped screaming.

Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2004 3:54 am
by patrikG
McGruff wrote:Of course, I'd still be hacked off if I lost a job to a budget competitor (like I did recently - location unkown). But I'd accept it. Once I'd stopped screaming.
I find the outsourcing threat somewhat ambiguous. It's premise is the homo oeconomicus - i.e. consumers making entirely rational decisions when buying a product - as well as total market transparency (on a highly complex market like that of IT-products this is not given).

These premises are, as we all know, wrong. Individual, small- and medium-sized clients need personal interaction, simply because they don't have that market transparency.

I find with the little bit of experience I have in negotiating with clients while money is a factor in deciding on who will get the contract, it is not the decisive factor. It is how you present what you have, how you deal with the client - in short, the impression the client gets of you. Business relationships are built on trust.

On the other hand - if the client does have market transparency, they can choose freely and have no need for this cosier approach - which is what I would think McGruff experienced.

In short: yes, outsourcing does happen - but the number of clients who have or can afford market transparency will always remain small, no matter what. For these reasons I don't see outsourcing as a major threat to the industries.

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2004 9:47 am
by randomblink
McGruff wrote:It's got to be a good thing if cash from rich, cadillac guzzling nations (like the US) gets redistributed to 3rd world countries (like here in the UK:) ).
McGruff... c'mon...
We don't do cadillacs anymore... Everyone and their Soccer-Mom HAS TO DRIVE A SUV... Even if it is just to McDonalds around the corner...

Sheesh! I have to agree man, it's crazy what 'us' (shudder) Americans are doing... I watch people drive around in their freaking SUV's for no other purpose than a status symbol... Meanwhile they are eating up the resources of this planet... stinking the air... and usually, they are cutting me off... ugh!

Personally, I am just waiting till the wife and I can move to Ireland... Ah, to be truly home...

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2004 11:40 am
by malcolmboston
imho i dont think the situation is fair

for eg.
if i took on a job, and say got payed £40 an hour (im from the UK btw) when technically someone in taiwan culd be an absolute PHP god and get payed £10 an hour, its all wrong

PHP/HTML/Insert language here are global languages, the same from whatever country you are from, organisations take the <span style='color:blue' title='I'm naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span> when it comes to this because they know the economic status of that country

but be honest if you were paying a client to do work for you, wouldnt you go for the cheaper option

i dont believe cheap means a worse job btw