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A few facts for US developers to keep in mind: - India will have 5.2 million software developers by 2023. - Average salary of software engineer in India is $7

A few facts for US developers to keep in mind: - India will have 5.2 million software developers by 2023. - Average salary of software engineer in India is $7,750 per year. - English is a primary language in India - Indian software developers are professionally competent. - All Indian software engineers will work for US companies remotely…from India

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
georgia_peach 4y ago
How can I possibly compete with that?! Guess I'll have to become a greeter at walmart: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/software/311845-boeings-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-indian-programmers.html https://mybroadband.co.za/news/software/311845-boeings-737-m...
Rantenki 4y ago
Some additional items to keep in mind: - Those developers in India are 180 degrees out of phase time-zone wise. There is effectively zero overlap in working hours from the west coast of the US to India. Makes it hard to collaborate. - You get what you pay for. Skilled developers in India move to the US (or some other country where they have better opportunities). I've worked with some _fantastic_ developers from India, but they've mostly relocated. - Quantity != Quality, although quantity does have a quality all it's own.
- alanwreath 4y ago
  Keep in mind: scarcity != quality either. That’s not to say that the US can’t fill the void, I believe that they are reluctant to do so because of the cost of US employees.
- potamic 4y ago
  People working from India tend to work between 5pm-1am local time which is 5am-1pm US time. That's effectively till lunch which is a pretty good overlap. Bonus, you are left meetings-free for the other half so it is solid work time. It also leaves you free during the day rather than the night, so you get to do other things.
qgin 4y ago
India has lots and lots of developers today and has had lots for a good long time now. But it seems there are factors beyond this list that prevent the majority of US development jobs from being shipped to india.
- fakedang 4y ago
  I think we shouldn't characterize it as US vs India, but rather as US vs not-US. And indeed, a ton of jobs are being shipped out of the US and, at the very least, out of the Bay Area.
nine_zeros 4y ago
Lol. India also has a shortage of software engineers now because these days they are building services for domestic market instead of for western markets. These software engineers get paid $50k. The average $7k software engineer is not the engineer anyone wants to hire.
- rmk 4y ago
  At $50k they are a steal vs the American developers who think they are changing the world with their crud apps and expect $300k before payroll taxes, health insurance, and endless political battles at the workplace, not to mention significant amounts of company stock every year.
  - CommanderData 4y ago
    I'm unsure how you've managed to compare a worker from a totally different country with very different living standards and costs to one in the US. Adjusted 200 or 300k gets you the right to live comfortably in the US.
  - fulafel 4y ago
    West European developers have been on about that pay level for a long time but not that many of them ended up working for US companies, despite being comparably competent to US developers and arguably more culturally similar to US.
    - physicsguy 4y ago
      And on better timezones
    - fakedang 4y ago
      Because it costs effectively more to hire West European developers. Hiring a WE developer has additional sunk costs to it, making it harder to replace an employee, hence companies resort to not hiring them, or hiring the extremely talented ones who haven't relocated yet on contract.
  - 4y ago
rmk 4y ago
I do not understand why you are being downvoted, but one look at other industries tells you that you are right. First, older developers will be mercilessly fired and replaced by developers in India. There is a growing cohort of older developers who are perfectly content to come in and do mundane software development work in India. They have the experience, and with the way America is treating its legal migrants, there will be a huge pool of developers who have cut their teeth on projects at leading American software companies who will be living out the twilight of their careers in India. For the current cohort of Indian Software Developers at American companies, a path to permanent residence and citizenship is 50+ years out. They all know this and have no plans to remain in America indefinitely, but will actively return to India, but not before lining up lucrative positions working for American companies first, perhaps also taking away whole chunks of work to supervise with them. Second, there is a growing awareness of development methodologies, cutting-edge technologies, and most importantly, cloud computing facilities located in India and growing cheaper by the minute. Developers joining the workforce today are much more suave and conversant with the latest technologies, and it's no different in India. As a bonus, many are perfectly happy to do mundane software development tasks that junior devs here are loth to do. Third, the exact opposite timezone of India is an advantage: it works pretty much like a factory that runs two shifts that effectively halves time-to-market, which is a potent advantage that will not be turned down by a company once its competitors start seizing it. Fourth, companies are beginning to seek out developers who have expertise in the industry in countries that have highly-developed niches in the industry. An example is biology, medicine, and bioinformatics. There are heaps of extremely-qualified Oxford and Cambridge graduates in England who are very happy to just take responsibility for entire lines of business (although they do suffer from an extremely awkward time difference with the west coast that works to their disadvantage). It is also happening with finance, to a certain extent. The number you have mentioned, of 5.2 million software developers is absolutely staggering. Even if 10 percent of them turn out to be as good as the best of the American workforce, it easily eclipses the cream of the crop here by a comfortable margin. This is combining with the move out of large cities in India to smaller towns where the cost advantage is even higher, which all but guarantees that there will be companies that will want to take advantage of that. Finally, there is a growing realization that globalizing indiscriminately, particularly to autocratic countries that have the potential to be formidable adversaries was very short-sighted and has created intractable political problems. The people in power have taken notice of this and will likely not want to put themselves in this position again. Younger leaders are all coming up in a time of brazen malfeasance by these autocrats, which also ensures that democratic countries will have a slight edge.
freetanga 4y ago
India. The place where Java 2.0 apps are sent to die over time.
zozbot234 4y ago
This comment is giving me an eerie feeling of deja vu. Haven't we been through this before?
- yellowapple 4y ago
  Like they say: those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it, and those who do know history are condemned to watch everyone else repeat it.
CommanderData 4y ago
I've worked with a fair number of Indian developers though our consultancy contracts. I must say skilled and excellent engineers are few and far between. I am talking orders of magnitude. Some have even slipped through the net after we've used the consultancy to hire people, only to learn they've known little to nothing about software once they were sponsored, we've sent two back like this and it was very emotional and messy. When you find a skilled developer they really shine but it seems big consultancy companies have a hard time allocating skilled devs where ever you are in the world. Lessons learned were lots of work hours needlessly wasted when we eventually paid extra and hired some graduates.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

georgia_peach 4y ago

How can I possibly compete with that?! Guess I'll have to become a greeter at walmart: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/software/311845-boeings-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-indian-programmers.html https://mybroadband.co.za/news/software/311845-boeings-737-m...

Rantenki 4y ago

Some additional items to keep in mind: - Those developers in India are 180 degrees out of phase time-zone wise. There is effectively zero overlap in working hours from the west coast of the US to India. Makes it hard to collaborate. - You get what you pay for. Skilled developers in India move to the US (or some other country where they have better opportunities). I've worked with some _fantastic_ developers from India, but they've mostly relocated. - Quantity != Quality, although quantity does have a quality all it's own.

alanwreath 4y ago
Keep in mind: scarcity != quality either. That’s not to say that the US can’t fill the void, I believe that they are reluctant to do so because of the cost of US employees.
potamic 4y ago
People working from India tend to work between 5pm-1am local time which is 5am-1pm US time. That's effectively till lunch which is a pretty good overlap. Bonus, you are left meetings-free for the other half so it is solid work time. It also leaves you free during the day rather than the night, so you get to do other things.

qgin 4y ago

India has lots and lots of developers today and has had lots for a good long time now. But it seems there are factors beyond this list that prevent the majority of US development jobs from being shipped to india.

fakedang 4y ago
I think we shouldn't characterize it as US vs India, but rather as US vs not-US. And indeed, a ton of jobs are being shipped out of the US and, at the very least, out of the Bay Area.

nine_zeros 4y ago

Lol. India also has a shortage of software engineers now because these days they are building services for domestic market instead of for western markets. These software engineers get paid $50k. The average $7k software engineer is not the engineer anyone wants to hire.

rmk 4y ago
At $50k they are a steal vs the American developers who think they are changing the world with their crud apps and expect $300k before payroll taxes, health insurance, and endless political battles at the workplace, not to mention significant amounts of company stock every year.
- CommanderData 4y ago
  I'm unsure how you've managed to compare a worker from a totally different country with very different living standards and costs to one in the US. Adjusted 200 or 300k gets you the right to live comfortably in the US.
- fulafel 4y ago
  West European developers have been on about that pay level for a long time but not that many of them ended up working for US companies, despite being comparably competent to US developers and arguably more culturally similar to US.
  - physicsguy 4y ago
    And on better timezones
  - fakedang 4y ago
    Because it costs effectively more to hire West European developers. Hiring a WE developer has additional sunk costs to it, making it harder to replace an employee, hence companies resort to not hiring them, or hiring the extremely talented ones who haven't relocated yet on contract.
- 4y ago

rmk 4y ago

I do not understand why you are being downvoted, but one look at other industries tells you that you are right. First, older developers will be mercilessly fired and replaced by developers in India. There is a growing cohort of older developers who are perfectly content to come in and do mundane software development work in India. They have the experience, and with the way America is treating its legal migrants, there will be a huge pool of developers who have cut their teeth on projects at leading American software companies who will be living out the twilight of their careers in India. For the current cohort of Indian Software Developers at American companies, a path to permanent residence and citizenship is 50+ years out. They all know this and have no plans to remain in America indefinitely, but will actively return to India, but not before lining up lucrative positions working for American companies first, perhaps also taking away whole chunks of work to supervise with them. Second, there is a growing awareness of development methodologies, cutting-edge technologies, and most importantly, cloud computing facilities located in India and growing cheaper by the minute. Developers joining the workforce today are much more suave and conversant with the latest technologies, and it's no different in India. As a bonus, many are perfectly happy to do mundane software development tasks that junior devs here are loth to do. Third, the exact opposite timezone of India is an advantage: it works pretty much like a factory that runs two shifts that effectively halves time-to-market, which is a potent advantage that will not be turned down by a company once its competitors start seizing it. Fourth, companies are beginning to seek out developers who have expertise in the industry in countries that have highly-developed niches in the industry. An example is biology, medicine, and bioinformatics. There are heaps of extremely-qualified Oxford and Cambridge graduates in England who are very happy to just take responsibility for entire lines of business (although they do suffer from an extremely awkward time difference with the west coast that works to their disadvantage). It is also happening with finance, to a certain extent. The number you have mentioned, of 5.2 million software developers is absolutely staggering. Even if 10 percent of them turn out to be as good as the best of the American workforce, it easily eclipses the cream of the crop here by a comfortable margin. This is combining with the move out of large cities in India to smaller towns where the cost advantage is even higher, which all but guarantees that there will be companies that will want to take advantage of that. Finally, there is a growing realization that globalizing indiscriminately, particularly to autocratic countries that have the potential to be formidable adversaries was very short-sighted and has created intractable political problems. The people in power have taken notice of this and will likely not want to put themselves in this position again. Younger leaders are all coming up in a time of brazen malfeasance by these autocrats, which also ensures that democratic countries will have a slight edge.

freetanga 4y ago

India. The place where Java 2.0 apps are sent to die over time.

zozbot234 4y ago

This comment is giving me an eerie feeling of deja vu. Haven't we been through this before?

yellowapple 4y ago
Like they say: those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it, and those who do know history are condemned to watch everyone else repeat it.

CommanderData 4y ago

I've worked with a fair number of Indian developers though our consultancy contracts. I must say skilled and excellent engineers are few and far between. I am talking orders of magnitude. Some have even slipped through the net after we've used the consultancy to hire people, only to learn they've known little to nothing about software once they were sponsored, we've sent two back like this and it was very emotional and messy. When you find a skilled developer they really shine but it seems big consultancy companies have a hard time allocating skilled devs where ever you are in the world. Lessons learned were lots of work hours needlessly wasted when we eventually paid extra and hired some graduates.