- Jul 29, 2001
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Learn Hindi now and move with your job.
- Thread starter Zebo
- Start date
Some of those jobs will move back; what cost-cutting suits don't take into account is that many consumers today are having a hard time dealing with foreign tech support (tech support is probably the #1 or #2 India-outsourced job). While the Indians can speak english, there is a still a large communications barrier (based on culture) between the east and west. Eventually, after companies like Dell recieve sufficient complaints as to the quality of the tech support, they'll start moving some of their jobs back to (North) America and start hiring people here again.
The jobs that will likely stay in India are those which involve low-level technical programming with less of a requirement of face-to-face communication with a client or project manager. An example of this would be Visual Basic programming for in-house apps that clients never see or use. Those are the type of applications that HP outsourced to India over 3 years ago.
While India has some schools like IIT which are in a class with Stanford and CMU when it comes to Bachelor's-level software engineering, they lack a "middle ground" of well-skilled intermediate-level programmers, the type that graduate from low-ranking Top 50 or Tier 2 schools. Because an Indian who's not an IIT grad is likely just a low-level Visual Basic programmer and isn't capable of much more than that.
The jobs that will likely stay in India are those which involve low-level technical programming with less of a requirement of face-to-face communication with a client or project manager. An example of this would be Visual Basic programming for in-house apps that clients never see or use. Those are the type of applications that HP outsourced to India over 3 years ago.
While India has some schools like IIT which are in a class with Stanford and CMU when it comes to Bachelor's-level software engineering, they lack a "middle ground" of well-skilled intermediate-level programmers, the type that graduate from low-ranking Top 50 or Tier 2 schools. Because an Indian who's not an IIT grad is likely just a low-level Visual Basic programmer and isn't capable of much more than that.
I have heard this is often the case and work that goes to india does not mean it will stay there.
Don't get me wrong, they are often well educated, talented people. The problem lies in their culture. They are worker bees. They rarely take initiative. If you want good code out of them, then you better have very good requirements and pseudo-code. If you want them to test the software, you'll have to explain to them exactly how to do it.
Personally, I'd rather have one excellent person making $95 an hour, then 3 micromanaged indians making $30 an hour. The problem is, there are a lot of bad folks making $95 an hour
Better hiring, human resource management, training and coaching pays huge dividends over just swapping out for cheaper bodies.
Companies like Microsoft and Sun and Apple have labs in India and other countries, mainly to take advantage of those top-level graduates who choose not to immigrate to Western countries. But they're usually small operations.
See, most of the really talented Indians end up immigrating to Western countries, and tend to stay here (permanently) have kids/family/etc.; which is why - in the USA - South Indians form the one ethnic group which can outperform Jews, East Asians and gentile whites in academic performance (measured by SAT and college GPAs). These are of course, descendants of Indians born here or naturalized indians who go through the US school system. Of course, this comes under the "race and IQ" debate which is largely taboo and tend to get people accused of being racists.
So there really isn't much to worry about, unless you work in tech support (phone support) or some low-level programming. If thats the case, then you better specialize or find yourself a higher-skilled niche. I don't know anyone who considers level 1 phone support to be a "career job" anyways.
BTW It's true that a lot of Y2K programming was outsourced to Indians. But most of the Y2K programming was such brain-dead stuff; you'd have to shoot me to do that stuff, or pay me lots of bucks.
See, most of the really talented Indians end up immigrating to Western countries, and tend to stay here (permanently) have kids/family/etc.; which is why - in the USA - South Indians form the one ethnic group which can outperform Jews, East Asians and gentile whites in academic performance (measured by SAT and college GPAs). These are of course, descendants of Indians born here or naturalized indians who go through the US school system. Of course, this comes under the "race and IQ" debate which is largely taboo and tend to get people accused of being racists.
So there really isn't much to worry about, unless you work in tech support (phone support) or some low-level programming. If thats the case, then you better specialize or find yourself a higher-skilled niche. I don't know anyone who considers level 1 phone support to be a "career job" anyways.
BTW It's true that a lot of Y2K programming was outsourced to Indians. But most of the Y2K programming was such brain-dead stuff; you'd have to shoot me to do that stuff, or pay me lots of bucks.
Originally posted by: alchemize
Don't get me wrong, they are often well educated, talented people. The problem lies in their culture. They are worker bees. They rarely take initiative. If you want good code out of them, then you better have very good requirements and pseudo-code. If you want them to test the software, you'll have to explain to them exactly how to do it.
Personally, I'd rather have one excellent person making $95 an hour, then 3 micromanaged indians making $30 an hour. The problem is, there are a lot of bad folks making $95 an hour
Better hiring, human resource management, training and coaching pays huge dividends over just swapping out for cheaper bodies.
That's pretty much the case. Culture plays a big role. As well, the quality of Indian schools falls dramatically when you move away from the really popular ones of which there's only 4-5 of.
What will happen now is that a lot of crap-easy programming jobs with overpaid north american programmers will get moved to India - optimization of resources. Meanwhile, a fair number of the phone support jobs will be moved back (eventually).
I have a feeling a lot of this outsourcing has to do with simple cost-cutting because suits need to deal with the impact of the poor economy on their business. Now if the economy were get back on track, you'd see less outsourcing. Outsourcing to such a far away country tend to save a company only about 30% max even if they pay the workers pennies per hour. There are a lot of ancillary factors which drive cost up.
Actually, Dell is being rather smart on the issue. The very basic technical support is being routed to India. Then they have an option of the user paying for "premium" support. Those calls get routed to the more elite group of people based on North America. For businesses, all calls are still routed to North America.
Perhaps. The fact remains that a few of my friends & acquiantances - some of whom are of Indian descent - have reported a number of problems when dealing with Dell tech support. The problems aren't always about not understanding the English words but some times about the inability of the operator to understand the problem, to comprehend the description, and just general incompetency in other regards. Phone tech support has ALWAYS been problematic, even when it was purely American. But nowadays it's more so.
Note: The best tech support I ever recieved was MSN (Microsoft) tech support in 1997 in the largely "pre-DSL" Internet days. Was only a five minute call, handled by someone in a southern state judging by the accent and the problem was completely resolved in that one call.
No, but those jobs can be seen as the "guinea pig" for this phenemenon and market forces have already caused some executives to reconsider moving support jobs there. The same will happen for a number of jobs that the article mentions; take financial management for example. That isn't a field any foreign country can outperform the US on. I think there are even some legal implications to having stock analysts and brokers work the NASDAQ from some foreign country on behalf of Americans...
General Electric Locomotive division has outsoured there computer tech support to India and every railroad has been having problems getting satisfactory help. Even the field tech support people working for GE has problems with there own tech support that is located in India.
Bleep
Bleep
Too many misconceptions in this thread for me to sit and correct (particularly the one about only 4-5 good colleges in India) But here's a question: Are Americans waiting for Indians to give them back their jobs? You can console yourselves (I should probably say "we" considering my career has spanned 1 year in India and 6 in the U.S so far) saying the jobs being moved to India suck or the people in India getting these jobs suck. But it's simply ridiculous to hear people asking for these jobs back. Is that the best the American can do? Are you really at the mercy of Dell and IBM and HP and HSBC for jobs? What happened to your entrepreneurial spirit? How many Americans that lost their jobs have attempted to start up businesses with manpower from India? Why can't you try to use the situation to your advantage instead of complaining about "people who speak like Apu"?
You don't do anything about the situation, you bitch about these companies and you expect them to bring back your jobs because some messiah told you that Indian workers were not as good as you? That's how you expect to make a living? Keep on dreaming or get off your ass and create jobs for yourselves.
I know it's not going to be easy for anybody. But talking about Indian IT workers in a depracating manner is not going to get you your jobs back. At best it will provide temporary relief by venting your angst.
But here's a question: Are Americans waiting for Indians to give them back their jobs? You can console yourselves (I should probably say "we" considering my career has spanned 1 year in India and 6 in the U.S so far) saying the jobs being moved to India suck or the people in India getting these jobs suck. But it's simply ridiculous to hear people asking for these jobs back. Is that the best the American can do? Are you really at the mercy of Dell and IBM and HP and HSBC for jobs? What happened to your entrepreneurial spirit? How many Americans that lost their jobs have attempted to start up businesses with manpower from India? Why can't you try to use the situation to your advantage instead of complaining about "people who speak like Apu"?You don't do anything about the situation, you bitch about these companies and you expect them to bring back your jobs because some messiah told you that Indian workers were not as good as you? That's how you expect to make a living? Keep on dreaming or get off your ass and create jobs for yourselves.
I know it's not going to be easy for anybody. But talking about Indian IT workers in a depracating manner is not going to get you your jobs back. At best it will provide temporary relief by venting your angst.
I'm nearing graduation in CS and the thing that I see is that most of my classmates are computer geeks like myself. About 5-6 years ago, I remember every idiot going into CS because of the money and they knew nothing about computers or even cared for them. I go to a small private school with good job connections (almost 100% job placement within a year of graduation) so I'll find something obviously in the 45-55k range instead of the 80k range. The only positive thing about outsourcing is that it got rid of the non-passionate developers who were only it for the money. If you are passionate about something, no matter what it is, you'll find a job and be successful. I eat, sleep, and breathe computers and until computers and software totally disappear from the face of this continent, I'm pretty sure I'll always have something to do. Unless the Amish takeover and then I better learn how to milk cows and build buggies.
Originally posted by: athithi
Too many misconceptions in this thread for me to sit and correct (particularly the one about only 4-5 good colleges in India)
That's an opinion but its based on talking with relatives of mine in India while I was there. Yes that's right, I'm of Indian descent, not some crazy "white guy".
Well yes, those are all valid points. Americans should probably see the Indians as "competition" and try to outperform them. But history shows that they won't always succeed as is evidenced by the post-war movement of certain industries to Japan which ended up staying there, making a permanent dent in the American market - referring to the automobile industry (for one).
Well, it is also a fact that in some areas, the Indians can't perform as well as Americans. It's not whining to be stating facts.
I don't think I was being deprecating at all, I was being blunt and to the point. If I say "person X is worse at activity 123 than person Y", I don't think that's called being "deprecating".
What a shocker
Well, I was born there and studied there all my life and I know for a fact that there are more than 4-5 schools of repute in India - and, what's with the "crazy white guy" stuff :Q Pretty silly of you to bring up something like that (especially after I mentioned I should talk from the American worker's point of view).If they/we won't succeed, too bad. To the victor go the spoils. Americans just moved on to other industries where they fared better and the American economy didn't disappear down the drain because of that loss.
No, it is actually whining when you select only one set of facts and insist that they depict the situation in its entirety. The absolute worst programmers I've worked with are invariably not from India. I can't count how many times I and my fellow Indians have saved the butts of American programmers in the projects I've worked on. Hold on! I'm just stating facts! I perfectly understand that there are probably other teams where American programmers have had to save the butts of their Indian team-mates/counterparts. But do you understand that?
You speak with insufficient information and you generalize the condescension in your post to apply it towards all Indian IT workers. Yes, you are speaking in a deprecating manner of Indians. For e.g.,
What the sh!t is that? :disgust:
Originally posted by: LocutusX
Originally posted by: athithi
Too many misconceptions in this thread for me to sit and correct (particularly the one about only 4-5 good colleges in India)
That's an opinion but its based on talking with relatives of mine in India while I was there. Yes that's right, I'm of Indian descent, not some crazy "white guy".
And that unfortunately is a very wrong opinion. There definitely are a boat-load of excellent second level (second only to the likes of IIT aka MIT, Caltech etc) e.g. regional colleges, many other govt colleges. Many of them come quite close to IIT/MIT level. Trust me you or whoever gave you that info/opinion doesn't know anything or plain ignorant.
Well, you and athithi are certainly free to believe that if you want. Needless to say, I didn't have any problems believing that assesment due to my dealings with Indian I.T. workers here, being an IT worker myself. In addition, the last time I was in India I had a look at some of the 3rd year material my cousin in Chennai was doing for the 3rd year of his so-called "computer science" program. It was a load of crap! - the kind of stuff I'd teach myself privately with a "Visual Basic for Dummies" book. Obviously, he must have been going to a crap school - but he realized it too, since he told me that his degree wasn't worth squat and so he was trying to get into a Business school to do an MBA right after he got his B.Sc.
Indeed, it seemed to me that getting a B.Sc in India was FAR too easy in general, with a high chance of getting some crap diploma whose only purpose is to be hung on your wall.
In America they call such schools "community colleges" (oops gonna get flamed now...)
There are some top-notch colleges where a B.Sc is considered a solid launch-pad for higher education. But I would tend to agree that a B.Sc by itself has very little value these days. However, the Community College analogy is unfair. I don't know about your cousin, but I know plenty of kids who had to opt for B.Sc either because they couldn't afford a 4-year Engineering Degree or because they could score only 95% when the quota system required them to score 99.999% :frown: by virtue of beloging to a "privileged" class. That is not quite the same as getting a degree to hang on your wall, like you might do at a community college. Again, there are exceptions to the rule and yes, plenty of Arts and Science colleges would only compare to community colleges here.
When I came here 6 years back, an Engineering degree was almost a pre-requisite. I guess that relaxed a little later on and now you see a lot of non-engineering graduates. But that original influx is what set the tone for the reputation Indian programmers got to enjoy subsequently. I believe that in some ways it helped that the first tens of thousands of Indian IT workers who came here were really cream of the crop. This is not to suggest that people who came subsequently are any inferior, but as the numbers grew larger, obviously the average quality fell. So, you can mock the B.Sc degree holders all you want, but you are still seeing what you want to see and not the full picture.
BTW, I am from Chennai myself. Which college does/did your cousin attend?
I can't recall what the name of his college was. I'm not sure I asked. Either way I bet it was named after the municipality, town, or one of the gods. Or maybe a combination of all 3. Isn't that how all the names are derived?
Anyways, maybe the quota system had an effect on restricting his options. He seemed pretty smart but he was also Brahmin. I gather that the "reverse discrimination" policy in effect would make it much harder for him to gain entrance to engineering program X compared to a non-Brahmin. Which is too bad, we all know that "affirmative action" never works, just look at the U.S. Merit-based is the only way to go.
Now, I may be a bit harsh about the Indian education system. If that's the case, then Indians should have no problem outperforming the US in the near future and keeping their lead, no? And, lest you forget the gist of my post I wasn't exactly mocking the B.Sc degree holders (except for that "community college" dig) rather pointing out that it was just IIT that was Stanford quality - insofar as the workers I'd dealt with. No-one I talked to could come up with names of other institutions which were similarly "good". If there are, I haven't come across any of them yet.
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