software outsource "threats" are laughable

[Tony]

Just because the dreaded topic of outsourcing come up every once in a while, typically traced back to some biased view of someone not working in the industry.

http://www.statesman.com/business/technology/austin-battles-shortage-in-high-end-software-engineering-2024970.html?viewAsSinglePage=true

Quote:

Some established software startups are paying "north of $150,000 for programmers....

And they still have trouble finding anyone to take the job.

Quote:

Austin's supply crunch for software developers was bad enough by September to prompt 25 Central Texas tech executives to fly to California in search of new talent.
...
...not a single one of those California candidates has made the move to Texas...

Cheap outsource jobs? Hah Companies would gladly pay $100K+ salaries and cover the cost of H1-B.

Now, to be fair, this is a battle for the top tallent. Getting a CS degree does not guarantee anything. This is for

Quote:

top-level, experienced workers with a few critical skills

Which now happens to be UI, mobile, and Cloud; likely to be different in 5 years.

If you are on top of your game -- the situation is pretty much the same in San Francisco, New York, and Seattle as well. Canada is much less, for a number of reasons:
- smaller tech sector, but salaries will rise in growing tech hubs. Kitchener/Waterloo already has Google; Facebook is rumoured to be looking to open an office there as well.
- less investment capital to drive startups (Ontario seems to have prohibitive tax laws for Angel/VC operations; there are still some though, just limited). It seems better on the west coast though. Vancouver has a growing startup scene, and they are realizing that for the top tallent they have to compete with Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Facebook, just a couple of hour drive away in Seattle, so are willing to pay up as well.

As a Canadian citizen, you can just show up at the border (with a University degree and a job offer), and chances are -- you'll get a TN visa. Good for 3 years, renewable indefinitely. Ever find yourself short $300K? Take a drive down to NYC for a couple of years.

So that's how it works if you work hard. But hey, maybe the goal is mediocracy? Minimal effort at a local community college, aiming for a cushy union backed job where the top technological achievement is getting around company's facebook filters, so that you can be slightly less bored while idling 9 to 5. Fine, those jobs are fucked. Because someone else in the world is willing and able to apply more effort, to produce more result. I guess this global economy world will not let you join your high school's guidance counselor's union and get paid big bucks to yell at the kids for getting around facebook filters. Question is -- is that a problem?

In the current (and nearly foreseeable) environment, you are not competing with the world, just with yourself. Make and keep up past the bar, and you are in. Companies are desperately dangling more and more delicious carrots, trying to get people to apply themselves, and so far the demand is simply not met.

[mirhagk]

Yes Tony, I 150% agree with this. This is my problem with the 99% movement. A lot (not saying all) are not out of jobs because of the global economy, or because rich people are rich (which would actually open up more jobs, but that's beside the point). In fact a lot of them can't get jobs because they decided to coast through school taking all the bird courses they could. It's because they have an art history major, with no desire to go into the education or research sector, and somehow expect jobs to fall into their lap.

If you work hard, there are jobs available, always. Sometimes you gotta look, sometimes you have to step outside of your comfort zone, but there are always jobs. For instance I don't want to do web programming, because to me it's the social science version of computer science. It's more design oriented, and less intelligence oriented (this is a personal opinion of mine). But I would gladly take a job designing websites for a company, until I can find something better.

[Aange10]

*Facebook like*

[Insectoid]

Quote:

because rich people are rich (which would actually open up more jobs, but that's beside the point).

This is debatable. The rich people in the US are really, really rich but I don't see new jobs forming. Do you? If people make more money than they can spend, that money doesn't trickle back down. If I make $150,000/year, and only spend 60,000 (including tax), then $90,000 disappears from the face of the earth every year. That money doesn't create new jobs. New jobs are only created if that money is spent.

But this isn't an economic debate. If you want to discuss OWS/99%/whatever feel free to start a topic.

Tony-
It's for this reason I'm so excited about co-op. I know my degree doesn't mean much; there's a lot of programmers without degrees. Co-op experience is worth far, far more. If I do well at my co-op placements, it doesn't even matter if I finish my degree. One of the companies will want to keep me (once again, only if I do well there). Why spend the time and money training someone new, when there's a guy right here who I've been training eight months to work exactly how I want him to?

[mirhagk]

@Insectoid, I'm going to assume for a second that your not the kind of person who hides their money under your mattress. Okay so now let's say you have $1 billion. That's in a bank. The bank will use this money to loan others money (ie small businesses, personal small loans, or big corporate investments). Wherever the bank invests that money, it is NOT doing nothing. It is used for investing, which is arguably better then simply buying things, because it's helping smart business models get implemented, instead of buying useless things that simply waste resources (ie a golden car).

Sorry for replying back to your start of a debate but you gotta realize that money is a finicky thing, and unless it actually disappears from the face of the earth, it is doing something. I actually did not want to have an economic debate, that's why I said it's beside the point.

And degrees are mandatory for a lot of positions, sometimes no matter how good of a programmer you are, companies sometimes require degrees.

But you are right about co-ops being more useful. Even if your co-op doesn't pan out, find a job doing something vaguely related to it. Something where people in your company are involved in the field you want. That will help you make contacts, and contacts are probably the most precious thing you could get.

LinkedIn. Best website for anybody looking to get in on the field. Because of it I have connections to every major company (Google, Microsoft, McMaster, Waterloo). When I'm ready to get into a co-op position in university, I might have an edge over other students because I can get into contact with someone there.

[Tony]

Woah, those economics have gone off on a tangent, but I want to clear up some misconceptions.
- People with $1 billion rarely would have that in cash[1]. It's most likely to be a diverse portfolio of stocks, investments, real estate, and other assets.
- I do not believe that small businesses ever had a problem taking out a loan, because "not enough rich people are saving money at a bank". A bank would issue a loan as debt against borrower's own collateral, making it secure. The entire world's finances would need to be locked up to not find liquid capital for a secured asset.
- job creating is very much up to debate, but as Insectoid points out -- topic for another thread.

[1] I'm using the term "cash" in its definition as: "money in any form, esp. that which is immediately available"


Re: co-op -- it helps you grind out that valuable entry-level experience.

[Sur_real]

mirhagk, McMaster and Waterloo are major companies?

But yeah, I figure it's because things get outdated quite quickly, especially in the tech sector, so an university degree is just to show a company that you know the basics and is capable of learning. And this is where the coop comes in, coop shows to the employers that not only are you capable of learning (have a degree) but that you also learned things that an university cannot teach.

[mirhagk]

Well co-op mostly just helps you get your foot in the door, you'll learn more from university then from a co-op (considering sometimes students end up doing unrelated tasks, or nothing at all).

And yes McMaster and Waterloo are major companies. A University is a business, just like any other, only difference is that the university gets funding from various places.

[Sur_real]

yeah I guess you're right that they can be considered as companies but not nearly as big as microsoft or google surely

[SmokeMonster]

It's important to stress that a lot of these articles are pure marketing designed by tech companies to encourage more students to graduate with tech degrees so that they can depress the wages in the future so they only have to pay developers 30-40k instead of 60-80k. I'm sure there are guys making $150k but they are a small small small fraction of developers. Even in San Fransisco developers working for startups are only making ~$70k, which might seem a lot but considering the cost of living in that city and the fact that these guys are breaking their backs working 80hr weeks with the constant stress of founders and VCs breathing down their neck it's really not that much. I agree with the overall point of outsourcing not being a major threat but it's important not to overstate the financial incentives for developers thereby playing right into the hands of these companies who have ulterior motives.

[mirhagk]

The government is evil again? Please know that tech jobs are amazing, with amazing benefits, even if they pay isn't that great. The company that I do contracts for, has contractors who essentially meet together watching LoTR while working, and the company is okay with it. They also earn a pretty good salary (both live comfortably with a wife and kid, and the wife doesn't have a job).

[Insectoid]

They don't want more students to graduate so that can reduce wages. They want more students to graduate so that there are more students to hire. Yes, this will probably also lower wages overall, but that's how supply/demand industry works. The 'ulterior motives' of these companies are making money. Making money requires employees. If anything, the ulterior motives created the high wages in the first place.

[mirhagk]

The fact is that many tech companies (especially video game companies) have profit margins in the high 90%s. Start-up companies will always have crap wages for the amount of work done, because the company is just starting, but a profitable business can afford to pay their employees ridiculous wages, and will do so,for quality employees.