6 ms·

Commenting anon, because i'm very concerned about how we are leaving the industry for our children, and how little executives care about the future. 1. anythin

Commenting anon, because i'm very concerned about how we are leaving the industry for our children, and how little executives care about the future. 1. anything we used to give to entry-level we now give to offshore workers, typically in Asia. While mean wages metrics look great, the cost savings are an illusion because we spend twice as much time communicating and tacking back and forth to the final answer across timezones. compensation consultants dont care about that, they care about mean wage metrics 2. people are are told to hire h1 only -- not explicitly -- but implicitly 3. tech execs hired into the org have relationships with major h1 placement agencies and place from those exclusively, the jobs are advertised with impossible requirements and then quickly sent to h1 pools 4. it is ridiculous to expect a computer science grand to "driving forklifts, construction, moving, factory work" -- what was the point of grinding thru 12yrs of intense schooling if you were going to throw the kids under the bus when they graduate? 5. ai is part of it, perhaps for certain jobs, but it isnt AI causing the issues in technology

alephnerd 1y ago
> people are are told to hire h1 only -- not explicitly -- but implicitly I've funded and worked at a number of companies in the Enterprise SaaS space, and that's bull. I'm not saving any costs with a Visa sponsored employee. At that point I may as well fully offshore to a GCC.
- corp8drone8sf 1y ago
  ))) Yeah that's bull. I'm not saving any costs with a Visa sponsored employee. It often isnt about saving money, it is about having fragile immigrant workers on a leash that you can control with the constant threat of layoff--->deportation
  - supportengineer 1y ago
    I’ve watched this abuse firsthand for most of my career, over 25 years
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    If it's control, you get the same in CEE and India with restrictive non-compete clauses that would make Illinois look like an open market, frivolous lawsuits, and no-objection certificates. Control doesn't impact my bottom line. Reality is, H1B hiring is just as impacted as normal hiring in the US.
    - corp8drone8sf 1y ago
      If you were right, we wouldnt have millions of h1s being hired in the US. You cant have offshore workers away from family, alone in a foreign country, with an RTO mandate, and glued to a desk in SF, constantly worried about deportation. This is about control, power, and abuse.
      - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
        We don't have millions of H1Bs being hired in the US. The exact number isn't tracked but I don't think any estimate puts it at more than a million.
        WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
        > We don't have millions of H1Bs being hired in the US. I think parent means over the long term. The dynamic they're describing has been in place a long time.
        ggandv 1y ago
        I just googled and in 2024 there >200k approvals for Indian nationals. That’s one year, one source country. And I believe that’s capped. Over time, it must be millions.
        cuteboy19 1y ago
        200k is the cumulative number
    - franktankbank 1y ago
      When shits tight H1B should be the first thing impacted. Whole point of the program is that there is a supposed lack of supply. Nevermind though because the whole thing has become a machine of bribes grift and kickbacks. No wonder you would jump to its defense as a beneficiary of the machine.
  - red-iron-pine 1y ago
    > It often isnt about saving money, it is about having fragile immigrant workers on a leash that you can control with the constant threat of layoff--->deportation and also the carrot of actual sponsorship. two paths to motivation. and some will get made into full-timers -- I've seen it -- but it just centralizes control
moron4hire 1y ago
Whenever this topic turns to AI in media, I like to say that AI isn't going to destroy culture, the destructive force against culture (i.e. Big Hollywood) is going to use AI to do it.
- eyesofgod 1y ago
  [dead]
belter 1y ago
It's not offshoring as much as people think. If you look at statistics for typical IT offshoring and near shoring markets like India, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria they have been in crisis since 2022. Only to show a slight rebound in Q1 of 2025.
- labadal 1y ago
  Can you point me towards some stats for these please? Are you looking at consultancy type companies or subsidiaries that hire locally?
  - belter 1y ago
    Here are some data points specific on IT. Back from 2023 until more recently, although as I said there is an uptick for 2025. For general statistics I like: https://tradingeconomics.com/ https://tradingeconomics.com/ "India's outsourcing giants cut hiring; disheartening for economy, students" - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-outsourcing-giants-cut-hiring-disheartening-economy-students-2023-06-12/ https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-outsourcing-giant... "India's IT services companies to report subdued growth during 4QFY25" https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/information-tech/indias-it-services-companies-to-report-subdued-growth-during-4qfy25-report/articleshow/120005560.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/information-tech/i... Poland: "..The sector's share of Polish GDP and the value of exports per employee increased significantly despite the fact that at the same time the growth rate of employment slowed down. And while these changes were anticipated, this is a new situation. Until now, all three indicators have been correlated quite strongly.." - https://absl.pl/en/news/p/new-phase-growth-modern-business-services-sector-productivity-growth https://absl.pl/en/news/p/new-phase-growth-modern-business-s... Romania: "Romania’s tech sector faces headwinds as global IT slows" - https://news.outsourceaccelerator.com/romania-tech-sector-headwinds/ https://news.outsourceaccelerator.com/romania-tech-sector-he... Bulgaria: "Bulgarian IT Sector Is Facing a Turbulent Period" - https://scoolmedia.com/en/bulgarian-it-sector-is-facing-a-turbulent-period/ https://scoolmedia.com/en/bulgarian-it-sector-is-facing-a-tu...
    - labadal 1y ago
qoez 1y ago
> it is ridiculous to expect a computer science grand to "driving forklifts, construction, moving, factory work" I agree, but at the same time this is what we told truck drivers when self driving cars was going to take over like a decade ago ("reskill, and at your own dime"). Kind of karma. Capitalism doesn't care unfortunately.
- michaelmrose 1y ago
  We should replace manual work with automation we shouldn't chop off the tree of industry knowing we will continue to need non entry level knowledge workers after current workers retire. Also the we haven't actually replaced truck driver's at this point so nobody was actually told to reskill on their own dime yet and the "we" that specuated on this point is largely merely pragmatic.
  - rimunroe 1y ago
    > We should replace manual work with automation Could you elaborate on the reasoning for manual work being different, and what it’s different from?
- lamp_book 1y ago
  Well I don’t think it was kids still in school telling the truck drivers that so I’m not sure what karma has to do with it.
3thr0waway 1y ago
Can confirm. At FAANG, it typically works like this. What's really striking to me is the rate of attrition. Can anyone explain it? Aren't these good jobs? Aren't there less opportunities for good jobs for them to be able to churn to? Where are they going? Why do they churn at such high rates?
- paularmstrong 1y ago
  High paying jobs? yes. Good jobs? no. The organizations are typically dysfunctional and all of the things that the original comment here lead to really poor working environments and burnout.
  - 3thr0waway 1y ago
    Isn't that a lot better than really poor working environments, burnout, AND low pay?
    - spacemadness 1y ago
      Are these the only options in the table? Perhaps it’s ok for people to want better.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - nradov 1y ago
    Poor working environments? You mean the office is sometimes too noisy or too cold or the coffee runs out?
    - franktankbank 1y ago
      Backbiting, nepotism, self-dealing.
      - hellisothers 1y ago
apercu 1y ago
>While mean wages metrics look great, the cost savings are an illusion because we spend twice as much time communicating and tacking back and forth to the final answer across timezones. compensation consultants dont care about that, they care about mean wage metrics 100% this. What you save in dollars is spent in time. Not just more documentation requirements, not just more meetings, not just changing your schedule to work early or late in crunch times, but way more time resolving obvious, easy issues.
- onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
  > What you save in dollars is spent in time. If you're on salary, that costs nothing to the business, so they don't care until it starts to impact them...
  - apercu 1y ago
    You're not wrong, but a well run company would have cost targets for a project, and the longer you are paying people (salary or not) to work on something, the more it costs and your staff aren't working on the next thing. So now it's $ plus opportunity cost.
  - reaperducer 1y ago
    If you're on salary, that costs nothing to the business, so they don't care until it starts to impact them... It depends on if you work for a good company or not. Several times a year I have to make a decision about the direction and handling of projects based on how many hours it will take, divided into my salary. Salaried workers aren't free labor. Wasting their time means they're not doing something more useful, and likely more profitable, for the company.
  - TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
    It absolutely does cost the business. Your salary is a generally fixed rate, and the time you spend also tends to be fixed. It’s a zero sum game with diminishing returns. The more time you spend on nonsense, the less time you spend doing useful things and the more time the company is paying for nonsense.
robnado 1y ago
Software Engineers need to get involved politically and demand regulations that systems that are critical for national security be developed by residents of the US on US soil by actual people with the right qualifications.
- nradov 1y ago
  What are the right qualifications? Most military software development work already requires a security clearance and can only be performed on US soil.
  - franktankbank 1y ago
    Healthcare IT is dominated by India. No skin in the game, no thought for the end customers (patients).
    - onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
      That's not THAT different from a lot of US healthcare...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- entuno 1y ago
  Qualifications are an interesting one, because they seem to be something that gets very little regard the development space. Other areas like IT security or systems/network administration have tons of different qualifications/certifications that you can take, aligned to specific roles and career paths. Whether they're actually any good is another question - but at least there is some kind of structure there. And there are some attempts being made to further formalise it, with bodies like the UK Cyber Security Council establishing a professional register and chartership status. But I don't think I've never met a developer who's talked about any programming-related certifications that they have. I'm sure that there must be some out there, but they don't seem to be widely used or respected. And I suspect that any attempt to formalise the industry and require people to get certified to specific standards would result in a lot of pushback.
keeda 1y ago
It's not even H1Bs, all of Big Tech is shifting jobs in bulk to their offshore development centers. It may not necessarily be overt layoffs and increased hiring there, but simply through un-backfilled attrition in the US while maintaining headcount overseas. As a sibling comment mentions, this is simply because that is even cheaper than hiring a H1B, and probably has fewer strings attached. The trick is that they increasingly outsource not just individual projects, but entire business or technical domains. This significantly reduces the communication and collaboration overhead, as each project does not need to be babysat. They typically have trusted, effective, high-agency leadership (often senior folks who have relocated back to their home country) that take broad strategic direction and execute on it locally. Of course, there is still a lot of cross time-zone collaboration due to technical dependencies across geos, but that is limited due to a strong push to make all infrastructure "self-serve" (microservices yay!) I think the shift started spiking shortly after the pandemic when companies realized fully remote work can work well, even across timezones. I am not sure what data the execs saw, but they all seemed to decide on this strategy at the same time.

alephnerd 1y ago

> people are are told to hire h1 only -- not explicitly -- but implicitly I've funded and worked at a number of companies in the Enterprise SaaS space, and that's bull. I'm not saving any costs with a Visa sponsored employee. At that point I may as well fully offshore to a GCC.

corp8drone8sf 1y ago
))) Yeah that's bull. I'm not saving any costs with a Visa sponsored employee. It often isnt about saving money, it is about having fragile immigrant workers on a leash that you can control with the constant threat of layoff--->deportation
- supportengineer 1y ago
  I’ve watched this abuse firsthand for most of my career, over 25 years
- alephnerd 1y ago
  If it's control, you get the same in CEE and India with restrictive non-compete clauses that would make Illinois look like an open market, frivolous lawsuits, and no-objection certificates. Control doesn't impact my bottom line. Reality is, H1B hiring is just as impacted as normal hiring in the US.
  - corp8drone8sf 1y ago
    If you were right, we wouldnt have millions of h1s being hired in the US. You cant have offshore workers away from family, alone in a foreign country, with an RTO mandate, and glued to a desk in SF, constantly worried about deportation. This is about control, power, and abuse.
    - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
      We don't have millions of H1Bs being hired in the US. The exact number isn't tracked but I don't think any estimate puts it at more than a million.
      - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
        > We don't have millions of H1Bs being hired in the US. I think parent means over the long term. The dynamic they're describing has been in place a long time.
      - ggandv 1y ago
        I just googled and in 2024 there >200k approvals for Indian nationals. That’s one year, one source country. And I believe that’s capped. Over time, it must be millions.
        cuteboy19 1y ago
        200k is the cumulative number
  - franktankbank 1y ago
    When shits tight H1B should be the first thing impacted. Whole point of the program is that there is a supposed lack of supply. Nevermind though because the whole thing has become a machine of bribes grift and kickbacks. No wonder you would jump to its defense as a beneficiary of the machine.
- red-iron-pine 1y ago
  > It often isnt about saving money, it is about having fragile immigrant workers on a leash that you can control with the constant threat of layoff--->deportation and also the carrot of actual sponsorship. two paths to motivation. and some will get made into full-timers -- I've seen it -- but it just centralizes control

moron4hire 1y ago

Whenever this topic turns to AI in media, I like to say that AI isn't going to destroy culture, the destructive force against culture (i.e. Big Hollywood) is going to use AI to do it.

eyesofgod 1y ago
[dead]

belter 1y ago

It's not offshoring as much as people think. If you look at statistics for typical IT offshoring and near shoring markets like India, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria they have been in crisis since 2022. Only to show a slight rebound in Q1 of 2025.

labadal 1y ago
Can you point me towards some stats for these please? Are you looking at consultancy type companies or subsidiaries that hire locally?
- belter 1y ago
  Here are some data points specific on IT. Back from 2023 until more recently, although as I said there is an uptick for 2025. For general statistics I like: https://tradingeconomics.com/ https://tradingeconomics.com/ "India's outsourcing giants cut hiring; disheartening for economy, students" - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-outsourcing-giants-cut-hiring-disheartening-economy-students-2023-06-12/ https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-outsourcing-giant... "India's IT services companies to report subdued growth during 4QFY25" https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/information-tech/indias-it-services-companies-to-report-subdued-growth-during-4qfy25-report/articleshow/120005560.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/information-tech/i... Poland: "..The sector's share of Polish GDP and the value of exports per employee increased significantly despite the fact that at the same time the growth rate of employment slowed down. And while these changes were anticipated, this is a new situation. Until now, all three indicators have been correlated quite strongly.." - https://absl.pl/en/news/p/new-phase-growth-modern-business-services-sector-productivity-growth https://absl.pl/en/news/p/new-phase-growth-modern-business-s... Romania: "Romania’s tech sector faces headwinds as global IT slows" - https://news.outsourceaccelerator.com/romania-tech-sector-headwinds/ https://news.outsourceaccelerator.com/romania-tech-sector-he... Bulgaria: "Bulgarian IT Sector Is Facing a Turbulent Period" - https://scoolmedia.com/en/bulgarian-it-sector-is-facing-a-turbulent-period/ https://scoolmedia.com/en/bulgarian-it-sector-is-facing-a-tu...
  - labadal 1y ago

qoez 1y ago

> it is ridiculous to expect a computer science grand to "driving forklifts, construction, moving, factory work" I agree, but at the same time this is what we told truck drivers when self driving cars was going to take over like a decade ago ("reskill, and at your own dime"). Kind of karma. Capitalism doesn't care unfortunately.

michaelmrose 1y ago
We should replace manual work with automation we shouldn't chop off the tree of industry knowing we will continue to need non entry level knowledge workers after current workers retire. Also the we haven't actually replaced truck driver's at this point so nobody was actually told to reskill on their own dime yet and the "we" that specuated on this point is largely merely pragmatic.
- rimunroe 1y ago
  > We should replace manual work with automation Could you elaborate on the reasoning for manual work being different, and what it’s different from?
lamp_book 1y ago
Well I don’t think it was kids still in school telling the truck drivers that so I’m not sure what karma has to do with it.

3thr0waway 1y ago

Can confirm. At FAANG, it typically works like this. What's really striking to me is the rate of attrition. Can anyone explain it? Aren't these good jobs? Aren't there less opportunities for good jobs for them to be able to churn to? Where are they going? Why do they churn at such high rates?

paularmstrong 1y ago
High paying jobs? yes. Good jobs? no. The organizations are typically dysfunctional and all of the things that the original comment here lead to really poor working environments and burnout.
- 3thr0waway 1y ago
  Isn't that a lot better than really poor working environments, burnout, AND low pay?
  - spacemadness 1y ago
    Are these the only options in the table? Perhaps it’s ok for people to want better.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- nradov 1y ago
  Poor working environments? You mean the office is sometimes too noisy or too cold or the coffee runs out?
  - franktankbank 1y ago
    Backbiting, nepotism, self-dealing.
    - hellisothers 1y ago

apercu 1y ago

>While mean wages metrics look great, the cost savings are an illusion because we spend twice as much time communicating and tacking back and forth to the final answer across timezones. compensation consultants dont care about that, they care about mean wage metrics 100% this. What you save in dollars is spent in time. Not just more documentation requirements, not just more meetings, not just changing your schedule to work early or late in crunch times, but way more time resolving obvious, easy issues.

onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
> What you save in dollars is spent in time. If you're on salary, that costs nothing to the business, so they don't care until it starts to impact them...
- apercu 1y ago
  You're not wrong, but a well run company would have cost targets for a project, and the longer you are paying people (salary or not) to work on something, the more it costs and your staff aren't working on the next thing. So now it's $ plus opportunity cost.
- reaperducer 1y ago
  If you're on salary, that costs nothing to the business, so they don't care until it starts to impact them... It depends on if you work for a good company or not. Several times a year I have to make a decision about the direction and handling of projects based on how many hours it will take, divided into my salary. Salaried workers aren't free labor. Wasting their time means they're not doing something more useful, and likely more profitable, for the company.
- TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
  It absolutely does cost the business. Your salary is a generally fixed rate, and the time you spend also tends to be fixed. It’s a zero sum game with diminishing returns. The more time you spend on nonsense, the less time you spend doing useful things and the more time the company is paying for nonsense.

robnado 1y ago

Software Engineers need to get involved politically and demand regulations that systems that are critical for national security be developed by residents of the US on US soil by actual people with the right qualifications.

nradov 1y ago
What are the right qualifications? Most military software development work already requires a security clearance and can only be performed on US soil.
- franktankbank 1y ago
  Healthcare IT is dominated by India. No skin in the game, no thought for the end customers (patients).
  - onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
    That's not THAT different from a lot of US healthcare...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
entuno 1y ago
Qualifications are an interesting one, because they seem to be something that gets very little regard the development space. Other areas like IT security or systems/network administration have tons of different qualifications/certifications that you can take, aligned to specific roles and career paths. Whether they're actually any good is another question - but at least there is some kind of structure there. And there are some attempts being made to further formalise it, with bodies like the UK Cyber Security Council establishing a professional register and chartership status. But I don't think I've never met a developer who's talked about any programming-related certifications that they have. I'm sure that there must be some out there, but they don't seem to be widely used or respected. And I suspect that any attempt to formalise the industry and require people to get certified to specific standards would result in a lot of pushback.

keeda 1y ago

It's not even H1Bs, all of Big Tech is shifting jobs in bulk to their offshore development centers. It may not necessarily be overt layoffs and increased hiring there, but simply through un-backfilled attrition in the US while maintaining headcount overseas. As a sibling comment mentions, this is simply because that is even cheaper than hiring a H1B, and probably has fewer strings attached. The trick is that they increasingly outsource not just individual projects, but entire business or technical domains. This significantly reduces the communication and collaboration overhead, as each project does not need to be babysat. They typically have trusted, effective, high-agency leadership (often senior folks who have relocated back to their home country) that take broad strategic direction and execute on it locally. Of course, there is still a lot of cross time-zone collaboration due to technical dependencies across geos, but that is limited due to a strong push to make all infrastructure "self-serve" (microservices yay!) I think the shift started spiking shortly after the pandemic when companies realized fully remote work can work well, even across timezones. I am not sure what data the execs saw, but they all seemed to decide on this strategy at the same time.