Posted on 11/01/2002 8:18:12 PM PST by FormerLurker
Gee...where to start.
Okay, first if everyone got out of programming and went into project management, we would have lots of incompetent (and overpaid) project managers.
Second, it makes no sense to take a highly skilled programmer (of which sadly there are not enough of) and make them a project manager. Believe me, I have done both, and project management is really not that hard to do well when leading software developers (building an aircraft, or a nuclear power plant, yes; being a PM for a software project team, no.)
Finally - lots of software development can't be sent offshore. I've seen it done, and done well (rarely), but it generally only works well when doing either very simple piecework that is easy to spec, or when doing very large projects where a whole mass of work with very clear and well defined requirements enable the code to be designed and coded offshore. But - from my experience - quite often we need to be meeting with the end users face to face to determine those requirements.
Most software projects fail because:
(a) No one shakes the real requirements out, so the software is developed to what the developers think the users need, while the guys who sold the work take the money and run; or
(b) The end users want the new stuff to look and act just like the old stuff (no business process change needed no sirree) and the end result is a heavily customized piece of junk that can't integrate with future upgrade releases - meanwhile the guys that sold the work take the money and run and the executives that bought the work go to jobs at other companies while putting on their resumes how they led and managed this major initiative (leaving off how they bail before it goes bust.)
(c) Or lastly the guys that sold the work didn't bring in the senior architects who could have told them that the concept wouldn't fly (can't scale, too complex, not enough money) so they just staff some junior types (who are cheap) who produce a system (that is supposed to support 20,000 simultaneous users) and craps out when more than 200 people sign on simultaneously. Meanwhile the guys that sold the project have taken the money and ran (e.g., they put on their resumes how they have sold millions of dollars worth of work, so they got hired somewhere else to do the same.)
Hmm...see a pattern here?
In none of these cases will "moving it offshore" fix the problem. In fact they will aggravate it.
Oh well - guess I am giving away that I have been in this business for a while. :-)
Er, last time I checked (80 x 103) X (1 x 106) = 8 x 109
You picked an outlandish number for average salary and the assume 100% of it leaves the U.S. Ergo, the worker paid zero taxes and lives here for free and never needs a bite to eat.
They pay ZERO US taxes. They ARE taxed on Social Security, but that money goes to their NATIVE country..
Sure they pay for lodging and food, but the majority of their wages go back to their native country, where when they return they'll live a life of luxury. If they even spend HALF of their money on food and lodging, then 40 BILLION dollars is still leaving our economy, as American workers would have spent and/or invested that money HERE in the US. If we take into consideration that many engineers working as consultants were making upwards of $60/hour (~120K/yr), and many permanent employees were earning upwards of $85,000 - $100,000 per year, the $80,000 average is quite conservative. That would include entry level workers in the $40,000 range, where there were fewer of them who lost their jobs than there were higher paid workers.
Where can I get one of these magic Visas?
Immigrate to India. Call sinkspur's overseas sweat shop service, maybe he could help you out. If you come here on a visa, be prepared to work 70-80 hours a week or more for about half to three quarters of the usual salary..
My husband has worked in IT for over 15 years, and if I do say so myself he is brilliant. He is now working in a very undesirable company and has many qualified American friends out of work due to H1Bs.
These foreign workers force the salaries down and are beholden to their employers for lower than marketplace wages. If they don't work forced free overtime and weekends they are fired and deported. The employers literally abuse these workers and get away with it. Many American programmers are driving trucks and working in convenience stores. It's impossible to compete with people that have to obey because of what's at stake.
I have no idea what project managemnet is, but I'm sure if my husband could get into it he would. The compnay he works for expects weekends and 12 hour days. Their attitude is "go ahead and find another job." There aren't any. We had to leave Tampa, FL (a place we both loved) because there was no work for him due to so many H1B's working for low wages.
This is the ONLY issue I agree with my current senator Hollings on. Do away with H1Bs!!!
Yes, until you begin to 'outsource' project managers - then what?
Er, last time I checked (80 x 103) X (1 x 106) = 80 x 109
You see, us old goats are getting rusty. The longer we're out of work, the rustier we get, and the harder it'd be to get back into the work force. Perhaps that's the whole idea....
Thanks for a real post. It is so easy to be flip about the hardship of other people - until it hits you. What a lot of people do not realize is, these foreign workers can do anything an American worker can do and unless something is stopped here - the greedy politicians will continue to force it upon the American workers in return for contributions.
I realize I am very simplistic, but I fail to see ever, how it is good to put an American worker out of work, put in a foreign worker who works for less, pays little or no taxes, sends most of the money home and has no interest or allegiance to this country. That is not the way to build or maintain a country. Just ridiculous
Yes, you would think so - but I have been eating Washington apples all my life - somebody was picking them before the illegals.
I do know what you mean, but that actually seems so with any agribusiness, home construction, highway construction. It is amazing!! If all these people were paying taxes, the government wouldn't have a deficit.
You know I have that thought quite often when I read posts on FR. Now I know sometimes people can get caught up in a situation where it is do this or not have a job and if that is the case, I understand to a point. But to deliberately work in this way to undermine the US just makes no sense to me. I see no diffence in that and hiring illegals.
Not only that, but it'd greatly reduce the number of families on "welfare". You see, once unemployment runs out, there aren't a whole lot of options if there isn't any work.
Unfortunetly, it becomes almost impossible for a family to subsist on any public assistance these days as major cutbacks have taken place over the past decade. Although politicians have created the illusion that SOCIAL welfare was the MAJOR cause of the deficit, it has in reality been CORPORATE welfare that's been the MAJOR cause of our debt.
Couldn't be.
If it is, my company is breaking the law.
You obviously didn't look too hard. Just one search for Programmer/Analyists in Houston returned over 220 H1-B workers on one page, where the search was limited to 500 records so only 10 pages were returned. As I said, there were OVER 220 on the FIRST page!
Now if you look at the OTHER categories, you'd see that the number of H1-B workers in Houston is ASTRONOMICAL.
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