IT Jobs going overseas? » Forum Post by Frogboy

It's going to be a struggle. A strong customer/consumer lobby to bring these jobs back home would be a beginning. Dell has recently shut down their India based tech support due in part to massive customer protest. That's a start, but their tech support didn't quite make it home. It landed in Panama where there is a worker base that speaks very good English as well as Spanish and will work for $2.00/ hour.

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lets hope that the goverment or/and the corporate community steps up.

and with an electopn year comming up too... "jobless recovery" indeed.

Also you can have IT future employees asking for $120,000 salaries either. That is way too high. I know I am getting into IT and I wasn't going to ask for that, not even with 5 years experience

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Hmm, how come they are quoting the frog? Friends in high places?

No way in hell that the costs in the US can drop to the level of costs that they have in India. Or at least not in the next few decades. The cost of living is simply too far apart.

So if big company X can cut costs by doing some part of its production or whatever overseas, why not? That's what a global economy comes down to.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

IT in the US doesn't have to come down to the cost it is overseas. There is a lot of overhead involved in having it overseas.

But yea, IT pros can't expect to make $100k salaries. Nor can they expect even $70k salaries.

It seems to me a bit ridiculous for IT people to expect salaries along the lines of doctors practically when a competent IT professional can be trained in less than a year -- which is why they're having such an easy time finding overseas people to do it.

I have a lot of respect for It professionals, but the current salary levels they receive in the US don't match the investment needed to acquire those skills. If it took many years of training to become a good IT professional then higher wages would make sense. But it doesn't. And until the IT industry understands that and brings their salary requirements down, those jobs will continue to go overseas.

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Brad,

I'll have to disagree with your statement about a competent IT professional being able to be trained in less than a year. Maybe if all you want is an MCSE or something, perhaps.

Some of it depends on what you're classifying as an IT professional. You aren't going to get an expert developer or analyst with only a year of training. The same is true of an expert sysadmin, or dba.

It may be possible to get a basic level of ability in these areas in a fairly short period of time, they may be able to function at some limited level of performance, but extremely few of them will be able to design, program, or administer systems that work correctly with large amounts of data, volume, accuracy, and / or performance.

The thing is, it *does* take many years to become a *good* IT professional. I do think the dot bomb crap went a long way toward the idea that any schmoe could get a certification and rake in the bucks, but that kind of attitude never lasts, no matter what. But you can't lump all IT people in that basket. I would be truly surprised if the developers you have working at Stardock acquired their level of skill in less than a year.

I agree with you, in principle, about some of the costs of IT, and (as an actual IT professional myself) I have no fundamental problem with outsourcing overseas, *if* it truly makes economic sense. In some cases it does, in other cases, it doesn't. It depends on what the circumstances are.

I'd have a lot less dissonance with this kind of outsourcing if the cost cutting was applied across the board. I have no problems with compensating CEO's for example, but to use your argument, the compensation they often get *far* exceeds the investment needed to acquire their skills. I have no problem with them getting any compensation they can negotiate if the company they head succeeds, but I also think that their compensation should be tied to the performance of their company, especially if it fails. CEO's are always arguing that their level of compensation is justified because only they have the skills to run that business (despite a great deal of evidence to the contrary). If they are really that skilled, then they should have no problem tying the percentage delta of their compensation to the percentage delta of the financial status of the company. If the company makes money, they make more. If it loses money, they make less. They would certainly have more incentive to succeed (options, in general, don't count. In many cases, the options provided to CEO's aren't truly tied to the performance of the company, and in the cases where they are, the goal of the CEO then becomes the pumping of that value whether or not it actually *helps* the company). I do know that there are *many* CEO's that are truly good at their job, and more interested in doing a good job than in merely making more money (I like to think the one at my company fits that bill

).

Ultimately, the value of *any* worker (IT or otherwise) should be determined by their contribution. Some IT people contribute enough in expertise and performance that they should be compensated at a higher level. Most should be compensated at a reasonable prevailing rate (which is quite a bit lower than the dot bomb era).

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Brad,

As an "IT professional" (your term) with 10 years of experience, I find your comments both ignorant and offensive.

Quote: "If it took many years of training to become a good IT professional then higher wages would make sense."

If an "IT professional" could attend 'X' years of training and acquire all of the skills needed to be proficient throughout his career, then perhaps your assessment would be more accurate. However, in order to stay valuable in the IT industry, a commitment to continual self-improvement is required at a level that is unheard of in any other industry.

It is very obvious that wages were over-inflated during the "dot com" boom... this was simply the result of supply-and-demand. Any Schmoe with "computer skills" on his resume could demand top dollar. Now that the dust has settled a bit, it is inappropriate to advocate that everyone in the industry deserves a pay cut "just because" you don't value what an experienced and competent professional can contribute to an organization.

Aleatoric,

Nicely said.

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Well, there are many kinds of IT professionals. There are the "technicians" who basically just took a crash course and got some sort of certification in a year, and there are the real professionals. A friend of mine is a system admin with a PhD in routers (or something of the sort I don't quite understand), and when the company he was working for closed its doors, he had no problems finding an even better job with one of the top engineering companies in the country. He makes top bucks. Another friend just had a basic training, but can't find a job now.
If companies start looking in porrer countries for lesser qualified jobs, then IT specialists here (North America) need to get more qualified and go back to school and go get more impressive credentials.
Cause that's not about to stop. Companies don't have a country. They go where they're more likely to lower expenses and be able to offer better prices and therefore be more competitive.

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paxx,

I agree with you. I'm a capitalist (

), and consider myself pretty much pro-business. I do believe that a global outlook is required to do the best overall business.

I also don't think that Brad intended to lump all IT professionals in the same bucket, even if that's what it looked like. There are levels of ability in the ranks of IT professionals, and education and experience are not just a bit of training away. I would argue that there are quite a few IT professionals with more education and experience than most of the management above them. That doesn't automatically make them worth a bucket of money, but it's disingenuous to argue that they aren't worth it just because they're in IT instead of management.

I don't have a problem with outsourcing overseas, in principle (where it makes sense to do so). I remember reading an article a few weeks back (Business Week, I think) that made the point that such outsourcing wasn't automatically reaping the rewards that the proponents claimed. Often, what was saved in salaries was lost in the cost of extra communication, specification failures, and so forth.

The primary gist was that if it wasn't planned properly, overseas outsourcing wasn't a real savings (not a big surprise, but a *lot* of companies jump first and ask questions later, especially if you wave some hypothetical cost savings under their nose).

The primary problem I have with most of these outsourcing initiatives is that they're often less about doing business in the most efficient manner, and more about trying to justify the compensation for the executives making the decisions.

I think that there would be less of an issue with this as a business practice if the cost cutting rationale were applied across the board, instead of just on a certain group of employees.

As for moving to poorer countries, there are some limits on the gains to be made in that fashion. At some point, equalibrium will be reached, and there will be no definitive cost savings to be made using that mechanism. That's a ways away, to be sure, but it will happen. Competition is about doing it *better*, not just cheaper. If cheaper is your only playing card, you're going to fail sooner or later anyway.

The thing is, for an information company (software, etc.), better mostly comes from your IT professionals, not just from your management. There are very good IT people overseas, and very bad, just as here in the states.

My argument for this whole scenario is simply to use proper planning to determine when and how much overseas outsourcing is used, and what you expect from it, and also for the management to be willing to bite the same bullet they expect the employees to bite.

I'm opposed to government intervention in this matter, but if enough people become upset and disillusioned by these business practices (valid as they might be), government action will eventually happen.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

I feel pretty comfortable in saying that I know what's involved in being an IT professional. And sorry, other than the few top percent in their field, there's no way that salaries of $100k can be justified.

Obviously someone in IT is going to disagree. I grew up in a blue collar area and assembly line workers constantly argued that their jobs warranted $40k salaries.

But ultimately, it boils down to this -- there is a reason why these jobs are so easily outsourced. IT pros can't have it both ways "it takes years to become a decent IT professional" and then turn around and complain that IT jobs, enmasse, are being sent over to India.

I'm a software developer myself and I don't think that software developers should be getting paid 6 digit salaries either for that matter other than the top few percent in their field plus specialist developers.

But the rank and file software developer can be trained relatively quickly just as the rank and file IT person can be trained relatively quickly. Which is why I don't have a lot of sympathy for IT people moaning about jobs going over to India. Until IT salaries return to something more in line with the investment required to train a decent IT person, that's what's going to happen.

But hey, feel free to call me "ignorant" even as you use the resources of a site my company's IT department created. I mean, what would I know about what goes into IT...

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

Aleatoric: Indeed I'm not trying to put all IT pros into the same bucket so to speak.

IT isn't being moved overseas wholesale by any means. Much of it in the area of database managers, technicians, server admins, ASP/PHP/SQL coders.

All of these jobs are good jobs and it's bad for the North Americans to be losing them. But in general, these are not $100k+ jobs. Their wages were artificially inflated by the dot-com bubble and unfortunately, it's been excessively slow for these wages to return to something more along the lines of what the market will bear. Which is one reason why these jobs are migrating overseas.

When I spoke to The Register for this article, one of my points was -- if I need 3 software developers, 3 animators, and 3 IT personnel, and the 3 IT personnel want $120k apiece, I'm either going to have to hire fewer of them, fewer of the other kind, or farm it out overseas. Since so much of IT is easily farmed out, that's wht I would do.

It's not quite accurate to say that it's costing jobs because I hire more people in those other areas with the money saved. I'll glady pay $30k to $70k for IT people depending on their experience, skill, and ability. But $100k? Sorry, other than specialists and best of breed IT people, that's ridiculous.

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Brad,

I basically agree with you, just a couple of points I want to elaborate.

I'm certainly not arguing that some IT person is worth 100k. The outrageous salaries provided during the dot bomb were just that, outrageous. Even so, the companies involved were willing to pay them (and largely tanked as a result).

Even during the hype, in my area of the country (Oklahoma, the land of dirt

), *very* few, if any, of the IT salaries reached that level. I'm an EE working as a developer (I like it better

), in the highest developer rank at my company, and while I make very good money, it isn't anywhere near 100k. I'd even humbly suggest that I could qualify for 'best of breed' (or close, anyway), and I wouldn't even expect a salary that high (I'd probably take it if offered though

).

Even as someone in IT, I agree with the basic economics of overseas outsourcing. I will also argue that it often doesn't save as much money as the proponents would have us believe.

The other point is that a lot of jobs are migrating to India because you're getting degreed CS people (and the like) who will work for the lower wages, not just those who are simply trained basic coders. So they're still an example of IT professionals with more than a year of training (though they may be doing much the same work). They're not cheaper because of training or lack of it, they're cheaper because of the economics of their situation (as I'm sure you know). Again, I don't have a real problem with jobs going there, as long as it's done with the right objectives in mind, and it's not just a knee jerk reaction or fad of the week to the companies involved.

I've changed my professional job skills three times in my adult life, and can do it again, if needed, so I don't feel particularly threatened.

My main argument (which IMHO, still stands), is that any company worth its bottom line is going to evaluate ALL cost saving measures (even if it includes cutting or even outsourcing management), not just focusing on any single group, be it IT, or infrastructure, etc. It is disingenous for management to say 'we're doing this or that to cut costs and save money', if they aren't willing to bear some of the cost themselves. That attitude goes a lot farther in engendering hostility than the actual cost cutting itself.

--

Addenda: (caused by an apparent need for remedial reading comprehension training

).

I noticed that you separate developers from IT professionals, and I include them in basically the same group. That would explain some of the disconnect between my position and yours.

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I would not have gave it a thought if I came out of undergraduate school for IT and got a job for 30 to 40k, but with employers thinking they won't attract anyone with that salary, they put up a 80k and then ask for more experience and range of knowledge along with their 80k price tag.

I look at what they want and wonder if they will ever find someone who knows all of that and been doing it for 5 years.

I'm just hoping when I graduate I can get a job. My IT/MBA expenditures along with a MISM won't pay themselves. By the time I finish all of that I would want to ask for 70 thousand!

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What's the average salary in the US?One of the my biggest surprises about this site is just how wealthy people here seems to be. Buying a $3,000 computer every two years seem to be normal for a lot of people here, along with having a $200,000 house and two $40,000 cars. I tend to think that if that's a reflection of how it is in the US in general, Americans are probably paid too much as a whole. And it probably is going to catch up with them eventually, as more companies are going to outsource the lower qualified jobs in a cheaper country.

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I'm just hoping when I graduate I can get a job. My IT/MBA expenditures along with a MISM won't pay themselves. By the time I finish all of that I would want to ask for 70 thousand!

...ahem... Sorry, that's just not going to happen...period. I'm not trying to burst your bubble, but in the world of Systems/Network Administration (large and enterprise-sized at least) your IT and MBA "expenditures" doesn't carry much (if any) weight. They’ll get you a help desk or maybe tier-2 job by themselves. When considering the kinds of jobs that would command that kind of salary, the only thing that matters is experience...and lots of it. I've been doing computers basically my entire life since about 12 and I now have over 16 years of professional sys/net admin experience and I haven’t quite made it to 100K. I hope you're not going into IT for the money, because it's not there. I do it because it’s what I love. I like telling people that I don’t have a job…I have a hobby that I get paid very well for.

70K after 10 years experience and considering inflation would be more the realistic.

Thank goodness I work for the DoD...I’ll never have to worry about off-shore IT outsourcing.

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Using DesktopX objects as a metaphore, I don't think it's too far off that business "objects" are the norm, and that assembling them into applications will be childs play. The skill and $$$ will be in business process and procedure - having the ability to define the model that a lesser programmer will assemble. Gives a whole new meaning to the term "assembler programmer" huh?.. lol

P.S. Seems to me that IBM or someone tried to make a snap together language back in the 80's, but I don't remember what it was called.

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paxx,

I'm not sure what the median US salary levels are (and some of the tech/IT related are most likely above that), but I can say with a reasonable amount of assurance that most of the people who are purchasing like you describe are almost certainly doing it as debt (and probably an almost untenable level of debt, at that).

On a related, almost humorous note, I saw a commercial on television last night advertising training programs to 'allow you to make big money in the IT industry'.

I'm surprised that anyone still thinks that's possible.

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I hope your wrong Orion. Spending 40 to 50 thousand (graduate school mind you, not undergrad) for your education just to turn around and get paid 30k

Then some questions arises.
A)
What was the first degree for?

What is the grad degree good for?

It would seem if IT staff is getting paid to much then IT training school also is asking too much as well. Not to mention the continuous training for new products.

I don't know... I never thought it would be big money, but I defiantly thought it would be a field that after 5 years I would be getting around 70k. I figured I would take my tech skills and hone them for e-commerce and systems design for who ever company or use my skills for a architecture/construction firm needing a tech.

-- Young and Confused about career strategy

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It's just crazy. And I really feel bad for those who are just graduating. Whenever I hear someone saying they want to get into IT/programming I ask them if they enjoy it. Orion is right, the high salaries and such aren't going to happen. Personally, I happen to love what I do, however, I do have a family to support. When I first started working at my current company they hired me at 5k LESS than what I was making when I had NO experience(before the big dot bomb). 5 years later i'm only making 5k MORE than what I was making from my first job and i'm doing 3x the work. Do I expect to get paid 100k?

Heck no. Do I expect to make at least 50k? Well, lets see...
I do the work of at least 2 people, If the apps i've written were erased the company wouldn't have ANYTHING to work with(read: Are my apps critical?). Answer: Yes. Then yes I do expect to make at least 50k. Do I make close to 50K? NO. Why? because my company knows that If I did leave they'd find somebody else who's starving for a job and probably offer him less than what I make. Fair or not some companies are really taking advantage of the dotbomb as well as the outsourcing prospects.

oh well, back into the hole..

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Here's an insightful article I found on Code Project about this issue. Worth the read.

http://www.codeproject.com/gen/work/offshore.asp

JollyFE

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i'm not qualified either way to get involved in the arguement, but i want to take the opportunity to thank my IT guys at work.

We're engineering/construction management so aside from your normal office networking, we network to a bunch of satalitte offices all over the deleware valley. in some cases we all share the same drives, in some cases we use each others printers. we all use the Novel system for communications and VPN, and we use a contract databasing software that wires throughout the company. Dealing with that stuff isn't something you'll get in 2 years of study at Penco tech, and i don't see how someone real cheap from overseas is going to have the experience and knowledge to handle such a complex system.

these guys deserve the executive salaries (though i doubt they get them). they stay on top of their game and on top of new technology, while running around our main office at the same time to help people who opened the e-mail called 'this is a virus'. It gets better. theres only 2 guys. And they always show up with a smile to recover an indesign file i've destroyed. They get my Kudos, and if the whole market had guys like these i don't know how they could ever get replaced, nomatter what the cost of someone overseas.

As for the demand? as long as we all use PC's there will always be a demand for IT people

if we had macs? then you can get the cheap overseas people to clean up viruses.

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Joetheblow,

Disclaimer: All of my previous comments as well as those below are my opinion based on my experience in the field for many years...they’re not the IT career gospel, but simply things I’ve seen, and well…experienced.

I have a HS diploma, and I’m a college drop-out (after two years). The only formal education in IT or computers I have ever had is the one certification I am required to have for my job (along with a few other company-paid OS courses). Everything else…I am self-taught.

To answer your questions:

A) Undergrad Degree: Maybe it'll open a door or two for you. If nothing else, hopefully they won't slam it in your face. Some schools have good placement systems, so don’t give up hope…but just don’t count on making 70k right out of school. I didn’t cross that until after more than 10 years of experience.

Graduate Degree: Squat...you might as well have gone to Vegas

If you’re not in co-op, get in. Every bit of practical and professional experience will help you. I would almost call IT training and schooling a scam right now...because all it'll get you without professional experience to go along with it is a help-desk job. Continuing training for new technology (to keep up) is cheap and simple...books, the net, and time.

Your salary range isn't impossible, but very, very, VERY rare in the situation or scenario you propose. For what it’s worth, I think the e-commerce stuff is way over-saturated right now from the dot com fallout as well as everyone and their mother getting certified and “educated” during the dot com boom. IMO, security and antivirus administration is where it’s at. This whole intarweb thingy was so hastily built-up and expanded, security was more of an afterthought than anything else. Network and systems security will only become more and more important for many years to come. Most of my free time at work is now spent researching how to make the networks and system I manage more secure.

Also, there’s not much upward mobility…you have to wait for people like me to die off...

Again, IMO, with respect to a career in IT the bottom line is…if you don’t LOVE it...don’t do it.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

Joe:

$70k out of college for pretty much any job is unrealistic.

If some CS graduate started demanding even $50k out of school I'd just set their resume aside. I've never met a college graduate worth $50k right out of school.

It is not the employer's fault how much someone chooses to spend on a degree. Heck, ObjectBar, ObjectDock, and Keyboard LaunchPad were all done by a minor who is only now a freshman in college. Total "cost" for him to learn to code: $0. Him going to college will have little affect on his skills.

Getting back to IT, the problem is that during the dot-com, the IT segment of software development experienced a huge demand which naturally made salaries rise very high. But those salaries were not sustainable in the real business world which is why so many of these dot-coms died.

Stardock, as you can imagine, has a number of IT people. But if we had to pay them $100k (or even $70k) on average we'd be out of business in no time.

A good salary out of college for a technical degree (CS, CSE, IT) would be $30k to $45k depending on your experience, where you went to school, and the position you're applying for. I'm sure there are places that do pay more than that but that's the exception, not the rule.

Listen to Orion: Beware of those who make claims on salaries being high. I remember reading articles where it claims game developers average $120k per year salaries. Yea right (reality: MUCH less than half that).

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Quote: "But ultimately, it boils down to this -- there is a reason why these jobs are so easily outsourced. IT pros can't have it both ways 'it takes years to become a decent IT professional' and then turn around and complain that IT jobs, enmasse, are being sent over to India."

Why, exactly, should we assume that IT professionals in India are inexperienced? As acknowledged in the codeproject article linked above, their relative "affordability" has nothing necessarily to do with experience, but rather everything to do with fundamental differences between their economy and our own.

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I miss wrote I guess.

I didn't mean to imply getting 50k after school. I figured it would be somewhere in the 30k range.

But I really thought that after a few years, say 5, I would be getting 50 and with my MBA I would eventually be in position to get higher.

But I do get what you guys are saying though. I shouldn't expect much after school.

It seems though, most people are speaking to software development or maintenance, but what I want to do is systems design/analyst and network security. I want to know a little PL/SQL, C++, VB, JAVA and the like, but mostly I want to be the designer of the system and the guy who manages and works to put those pieces together.

I would like to take that knowledge back to my original field Architecture and Construction (because they REALLY need it) but who knows who will hire me. It seems like I need 10 years experience in 10 different things just to get a chance.

I still like school though. It is helping me in some ways (like ideas and how to implement them for my own business) and I am meeting people too.

Oh and I would disagree with e-commerce. E-commerce is not just for dot-coms. It is actually being used more now then before the bubble burst. Banks, business to business collaborations (VPN), manufacturing, digital firms (like Stardock *wink*), and others use the Internet, intranet, or extra-net to do day to day activities or business transactions. You got groupware, knowledge management systems, decision support systems, enterprise systems, transaction processing systems, business information warehouses, data analysis, knowledge formation... all uses Internet technology.

... and another thing about outsourcing, it is only as good as you can manage the people your hiring. I think in some ways many companies are getting on the outsourcing band wagon without looking at it thoroughly. I wouldn't be surprised if a major company losses data, private or proprietary information because half their IT staff is in another country.

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It depends who the employer is. With a post-graduate degree, say with an engineering degree in computer networking, you'll never get hired by the small shops. Or if you do, it'll be with the same salary as somebody with just a technical degree. On the other hand, an engeneering degree will get you a better salary at bigger firms and government agencies. For example Cisco or the likes. Or engeneering firms that have contracts with large companies and governments around the world. Those kinds of jobs can pay really well ($80,000+), and do require a post graduate degree. But without any experices you're chances are pretty slim to get hired, unless you graduated with honours with a A+ average. So, the bottom line is that you'll probably have to get hired in a smaller company at a much lower salary until you get a good 5 year of experience or more, then you'll be able to get hired by larger companies at a very interesting salary.

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