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The language people use is funny. When companies offshore skilled factory jobs to foreign countries, they call that "offshoring." But when it comes to programme

by rayiner 9mo ago

The language people use is funny. When companies offshore skilled factory jobs to foreign countries, they call that "offshoring." But when it comes to programmers, they call it "going where the talent is." They act like programmers are in a different class than machinists.

surgical_fire 9mo ago
In some ways they are. For a bit of time I worked offshore for a company in the US. That was pure cost cutting, I was making probably around 5x-10x less than someone with similar skills in the US. After a while I landed a job that required me to migrate to a different country. I actually make more here than the average salary for a local engineer. I don't know many machinists that are hired from halfway across the globe, relocation costs included, to make more than the average machinist in the destination country.
- jacquesm 9mo ago
  I don't know about machinists but I do know about (and know one personally) welders with certain specialties that can basically name their price. Such as the ones that can fix gear in running steelplants where shutting the thing down would require a rebuild.
  - surgical_fire 9mo ago
    We are in agreement then. Specialized skill is valued in the correct context, when there is demand for it.
AndrewKemendo 9mo ago
Homie you’ve been around here long enough to know that that is exactly the case Software developers view themselves as an entirely different class than skilled blue-collar laborers precisely because of their access to capital It is explicitly because a single engineer can go out and get money from a capitalist and a single machine shop operator cannot go out and get money from a capitalist that makes the distinction People wonder why software developers are anti-union it’s because they are fundamentally capitalist at heart
- mrguyorama 9mo ago
  The vast vast vast majority of programmers do not have access to capital. But they eat up the propaganda about how they totally could just happen to get that capital and run a one man software business and make a billion dollars. Which is why they spent all that time and energy insisting they didn't have to unionize, because they were super important and could totally negotiate better than anyone else, especially a giant group of programmers, and now are panicking because dumb middle managers want to replace them with LLMs entirely. Very predictable.
  - AndrewKemendo 9mo ago
    Temporarily embarrassed billionaires
lkjdsklf 9mo ago
The author is a tech writer from india. It wouldn't make any sense for them to call it offshoring.
roysting 9mo ago
Funny, is not really the term I think of. The common denominator of it has always been manipulative and abusive lying. The parasitic ruling class of psychopaths has always used rather basic and typical abusive patterns like dividing, disparate qualifications, constantly moving targets, refusing success, leading on with promises, evading responsibility and especially consequences, often with yet more abuse and even enlisting others to expand and validate the abuse. Just alone "going where the talent is" itself is just plain out abusive and narcissistic behavior typical of the worst people, it's clearly not the parasitic ruling class or their parasitic abusiveness ... it's you, that you are not "talented", you are not "worthy" now that they have sucked and drained all they can get from you for decades and generations with all the other euphemistic language like "offshoring" instead of "wanting to profit at your expense but externalize the costs onto you too". So you did this to yourself ... don't you know... because you are simply not talented enough and now you made the parasites have to go seek the talent elsewhere ... see what you did to the parasites who only just want to do right by you? Humanity really needs to gain a far greater understanding of what narcissism is, how to identify it, how to resist and stand against it, how to counter it, and even how to utterly destroy and eradicate it and anyone who does it from society. Many people simply don't even really understand what it is let alone how pernicious and subtle it is in its subversion; but it is utterly destructive, subversive, and parasitic for all of humanity. If we self-eradicate human life on this planet it will 100% be due to our inability to control narcissists like the people who say things like "going where the talent is". Just alone saying that kind of thing is utterly abusive and should be considered treason, because it is... betrayal.
keeda 9mo ago
Ehh, it's called offshoring for programmers too. Maybe "outsourcing" in some places. The Indian IT giants themselves call it the onsite / offshore model, with a few "onsite" people -- liasons typically on H1B embedded in the clients' offices -- coordinating the much larger "offshore" teams.

by rayiner 9mo ago

surgical_fire 9mo ago

In some ways they are. For a bit of time I worked offshore for a company in the US. That was pure cost cutting, I was making probably around 5x-10x less than someone with similar skills in the US. After a while I landed a job that required me to migrate to a different country. I actually make more here than the average salary for a local engineer. I don't know many machinists that are hired from halfway across the globe, relocation costs included, to make more than the average machinist in the destination country.

jacquesm 9mo ago
I don't know about machinists but I do know about (and know one personally) welders with certain specialties that can basically name their price. Such as the ones that can fix gear in running steelplants where shutting the thing down would require a rebuild.
- surgical_fire 9mo ago
  We are in agreement then. Specialized skill is valued in the correct context, when there is demand for it.

AndrewKemendo 9mo ago

Homie you’ve been around here long enough to know that that is exactly the case Software developers view themselves as an entirely different class than skilled blue-collar laborers precisely because of their access to capital It is explicitly because a single engineer can go out and get money from a capitalist and a single machine shop operator cannot go out and get money from a capitalist that makes the distinction People wonder why software developers are anti-union it’s because they are fundamentally capitalist at heart

mrguyorama 9mo ago
The vast vast vast majority of programmers do not have access to capital. But they eat up the propaganda about how they totally could just happen to get that capital and run a one man software business and make a billion dollars. Which is why they spent all that time and energy insisting they didn't have to unionize, because they were super important and could totally negotiate better than anyone else, especially a giant group of programmers, and now are panicking because dumb middle managers want to replace them with LLMs entirely. Very predictable.
- AndrewKemendo 9mo ago
  Temporarily embarrassed billionaires

lkjdsklf 9mo ago

The author is a tech writer from india. It wouldn't make any sense for them to call it offshoring.

roysting 9mo ago

Funny, is not really the term I think of. The common denominator of it has always been manipulative and abusive lying. The parasitic ruling class of psychopaths has always used rather basic and typical abusive patterns like dividing, disparate qualifications, constantly moving targets, refusing success, leading on with promises, evading responsibility and especially consequences, often with yet more abuse and even enlisting others to expand and validate the abuse. Just alone "going where the talent is" itself is just plain out abusive and narcissistic behavior typical of the worst people, it's clearly not the parasitic ruling class or their parasitic abusiveness ... it's you, that you are not "talented", you are not "worthy" now that they have sucked and drained all they can get from you for decades and generations with all the other euphemistic language like "offshoring" instead of "wanting to profit at your expense but externalize the costs onto you too". So you did this to yourself ... don't you know... because you are simply not talented enough and now you made the parasites have to go seek the talent elsewhere ... see what you did to the parasites who only just want to do right by you? Humanity really needs to gain a far greater understanding of what narcissism is, how to identify it, how to resist and stand against it, how to counter it, and even how to utterly destroy and eradicate it and anyone who does it from society. Many people simply don't even really understand what it is let alone how pernicious and subtle it is in its subversion; but it is utterly destructive, subversive, and parasitic for all of humanity. If we self-eradicate human life on this planet it will 100% be due to our inability to control narcissists like the people who say things like "going where the talent is". Just alone saying that kind of thing is utterly abusive and should be considered treason, because it is... betrayal.

keeda 9mo ago

Ehh, it's called offshoring for programmers too. Maybe "outsourcing" in some places. The Indian IT giants themselves call it the onsite / offshore model, with a few "onsite" people -- liasons typically on H1B embedded in the clients' offices -- coordinating the much larger "offshore" teams.