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Overall, I've seen more full stack skills, polyglots, and a willingness to tailor design and stacks to the problem. Companies want an FTE or two that replaces a

Overall, I've seen more full stack skills, polyglots, and a willingness to tailor design and stacks to the problem. Companies want an FTE or two that replaces an entire off shore team and we accommodate to avoid off shoring. We've adapted as a community to have a skillset and evangelize stacks that at minimum compliments off shore if not replaces them. Simply put, after all the basic Dev and ops jobs left, we moved up the value chain. It's a cycle and the off shoring firms will move up the value chain and US devs will further specialize in to ML, AI, speech, Big Data/Data Science, etc. Those areas are quickly being commoditized by the cloud providers, so they're within reach of most US developers. Furthermore, off shoring firms will likely be content to provide the cheaper, lower level rungs of the value chain.

pedrosorio 9y ago
"I've seen more full stack skills, polyglots (...) Companies want an FTE or two that replaces an entire off shore team" Everything points to gaining breadth in order to "move up the value chain". "US devs will further specialize in to ML, AI, speech, Big Data/Data Science" In line with the previous statement, you mean increase their breadth, not specialize, right? "Those areas are quickly being commoditized by the cloud providers, so they're within reach of most US developers." What makes these areas more accessible to US developers than offshore?
- krinchan 9y ago
  For the first two, that's probably a better way to put it. Breadth and T-shaped skill sets are all the rage. For the last bit, I tried to hint at that in my original comment. People who achieve that breadth outside the US can normally negotiate directly with employers in the US. This can give them more money and gives the company a more stable resource. The bulk hires from Infosys, Tata, etc. don't have this luxury. For US employees, there's both the drive to keep ahead of offshoring and the fact that so many US employers will invest in their employees. This class of offshoring companies that are suffering don't do that. Which is another point: These are not intended to be generalizations of all offshore teams and offshoring companies. The more breadth and automation an offshore company leverages, the more resilient they are. I don't doubt that Infosys and Tata will survive, but the sheer scale of their employment numbers is going to take a permanent hit and stateside devs are again going to need to become even more jack-of-all-trades with more than one specialization to stay ahead. Behold, the birth of the TT skillset. /s

pedrosorio 9y ago

"I've seen more full stack skills, polyglots (...) Companies want an FTE or two that replaces an entire off shore team" Everything points to gaining breadth in order to "move up the value chain". "US devs will further specialize in to ML, AI, speech, Big Data/Data Science" In line with the previous statement, you mean increase their breadth, not specialize, right? "Those areas are quickly being commoditized by the cloud providers, so they're within reach of most US developers." What makes these areas more accessible to US developers than offshore?

krinchan 9y ago
For the first two, that's probably a better way to put it. Breadth and T-shaped skill sets are all the rage. For the last bit, I tried to hint at that in my original comment. People who achieve that breadth outside the US can normally negotiate directly with employers in the US. This can give them more money and gives the company a more stable resource. The bulk hires from Infosys, Tata, etc. don't have this luxury. For US employees, there's both the drive to keep ahead of offshoring and the fact that so many US employers will invest in their employees. This class of offshoring companies that are suffering don't do that. Which is another point: These are not intended to be generalizations of all offshore teams and offshoring companies. The more breadth and automation an offshore company leverages, the more resilient they are. I don't doubt that Infosys and Tata will survive, but the sheer scale of their employment numbers is going to take a permanent hit and stateside devs are again going to need to become even more jack-of-all-trades with more than one specialization to stay ahead. Behold, the birth of the TT skillset. /s