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>So, if they're not willing to pay Western developers, they're not exactly going to be looking at the premium end of the Indian talent pool either are they! I

>So, if they're not willing to pay Western developers, they're not exactly going to be looking at the premium end of the Indian talent pool either are they! I beg to differ. You're either ignorant or have no idea how many SW and HW you interact with regularly from big name companies, has been through the hands of skilled Indian or other offshore devs which while being cheaper than American devs, are in now way worse programmers, sometimes the opposite. You seem to equate pay only with talent and skill, but that's rarely the case. Lower paid international devs aren't necessarily worse than their American counterparts and well paid American devs aren't always better than international talent. Your pay is more a function of opportunities and supply/demand in your area rather then purely on your own skills. Otherwise explain me how the same international devs who struggle to crack 50k in their own developing country can suddenly score 200k+ the moment they're in the American labor market. They don't magically become 4x better coders the moment they cross the border.

traceroute66 3y ago
For the record, I don't buy the whole "America is best thing" and I most certainly don't have a dog in the whole patriotic-flag-waving-bs fight either. And yes, I've been on the receiving end of what would be politely described as "poor" US talent, so I'm acutely aware that not everything in the garden is rosy. I am also not disputing that there is a proportion of companies out there who go to India for all the best reasons, a genuine quest for talent. But sadly, I think we have to accept the reality that such companies are very much in the minority. The reality, sadly, is that the majority of companies who outsource to India only do so for one reason. Aggressive cost-cutting.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >The reality, sadly, is that the majority of companies who outsource to India only do so for one reason. Aggressive cost-cutting. Of course companies will optimize for the best bang for the buck labor the same way you optimize for the best bang for the buck products when you shop for something, that's how capitalism works, it's a two way street. Now if the move to India, or anywhere else, lowers the development cost without lowering the product quality, why is that a problem? I would understand this being an issue when offshoring causes the quality of the product to go to shit, but it often isn't the case anymore, so what's then problem here? Unless of course you mean the problem is "THEY TOOK OUR JOBS!" which would be understandable but like I said, capitalism is a two way street.
  - daddylongstroke 3y ago
    I've been in this "industry" for near 25 years. I'm in the US (though not American), but in that time I've rarely worked with Americans on my direct or adjacent teams (they're definitely a minority in tech, and I've worked from 12-person startups, to 300K-person giants). I've even worked for some of the body-shop-outsourcers you've referenced and have been the one providing the outsourcing. I understand this is anecdotal, but I have never seen any outsourcing or offshoring contract that didn't cause the quality of a product or service to go to shit. Quality isn't even usually quantified and defined in most offshoring contracts (at least ones where I've worked). The amount of downright fraud involved in the providers, where for example, we were supposed to provide service X for 5 years, but really we've just told the customer we did, and now we're going to retroactively go back 5 years and adjust some engineer's timesheets, is both common and staggering.
mschuster91 3y ago
> Otherwise explain me how the same international devs who struggle to crack 50k in their own developing country can suddenly score 200k+ the moment they're in the American labor market. They don't magically become 4x better coders the moment they cross the border. Supply and demand. American companies needed "developers, developers, developers", and when the supply is very finite and at the same time the investment markets were flush with "dumb money" that begs for at least a pittance of ROI, so in the end they ended up in bidding wars. So now when a developer from <insert poor country here> enters the US labor market, their market value increases simply because they are now adding to the supply side of the US labor market - them being in the US is the factor.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  That was a rhetorical question. The explanation you gave was the correct one but it wasn't nectary since it was obvious and self-suggested from my rant.

traceroute66 3y ago

For the record, I don't buy the whole "America is best thing" and I most certainly don't have a dog in the whole patriotic-flag-waving-bs fight either. And yes, I've been on the receiving end of what would be politely described as "poor" US talent, so I'm acutely aware that not everything in the garden is rosy. I am also not disputing that there is a proportion of companies out there who go to India for all the best reasons, a genuine quest for talent. But sadly, I think we have to accept the reality that such companies are very much in the minority. The reality, sadly, is that the majority of companies who outsource to India only do so for one reason. Aggressive cost-cutting.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>The reality, sadly, is that the majority of companies who outsource to India only do so for one reason. Aggressive cost-cutting. Of course companies will optimize for the best bang for the buck labor the same way you optimize for the best bang for the buck products when you shop for something, that's how capitalism works, it's a two way street. Now if the move to India, or anywhere else, lowers the development cost without lowering the product quality, why is that a problem? I would understand this being an issue when offshoring causes the quality of the product to go to shit, but it often isn't the case anymore, so what's then problem here? Unless of course you mean the problem is "THEY TOOK OUR JOBS!" which would be understandable but like I said, capitalism is a two way street.
- daddylongstroke 3y ago
  I've been in this "industry" for near 25 years. I'm in the US (though not American), but in that time I've rarely worked with Americans on my direct or adjacent teams (they're definitely a minority in tech, and I've worked from 12-person startups, to 300K-person giants). I've even worked for some of the body-shop-outsourcers you've referenced and have been the one providing the outsourcing. I understand this is anecdotal, but I have never seen any outsourcing or offshoring contract that didn't cause the quality of a product or service to go to shit. Quality isn't even usually quantified and defined in most offshoring contracts (at least ones where I've worked). The amount of downright fraud involved in the providers, where for example, we were supposed to provide service X for 5 years, but really we've just told the customer we did, and now we're going to retroactively go back 5 years and adjust some engineer's timesheets, is both common and staggering.

mschuster91 3y ago

> Otherwise explain me how the same international devs who struggle to crack 50k in their own developing country can suddenly score 200k+ the moment they're in the American labor market. They don't magically become 4x better coders the moment they cross the border. Supply and demand. American companies needed "developers, developers, developers", and when the supply is very finite and at the same time the investment markets were flush with "dumb money" that begs for at least a pittance of ROI, so in the end they ended up in bidding wars. So now when a developer from <insert poor country here> enters the US labor market, their market value increases simply because they are now adding to the supply side of the US labor market - them being in the US is the factor.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
That was a rhetorical question. The explanation you gave was the correct one but it wasn't nectary since it was obvious and self-suggested from my rant.