Tech jobs leaving home

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | Tuesday, July 15, 2003 | Rachel Konrad - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

[Willie Green]

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Peter Kerrigan encouraged friends to move to Silicon Valley throughout the 1980s and '90s, wooing them with tales of lucrative jobs in a burgeoning industry.

But he lost his network engineering job at a major telecommunications company in August 2001 and remains unemployed. Now 43, the veteran programmer is urging his 18-year-old nephew to stay in suburban Chicago and is discouraging him from pursuing degrees in computer science or engineering.

[GingisK]

Hi there, Pooh! I didn't know you were a software developer. It is nice to be in good company.

I would add that folks should be learning more about formal testing methods and sensible project management techniques. Documentation is a fact of life, yet few people can write even mediocre material.

It seems that the object-oriented design approach is taught by language rather than concept. It surprises me how many folks just plain fail to "containerize" functionality. Global variables, indeed!

[Bush2000]

This may sound hard-hearted, but it's just reality. Conservatives are supposed to understand that "life's not fair", and deal with that. Not be like liberal whiners who act like the world somehow owes them a living doing exactly what they want to do.

Personally, I wouldn't ascribe too much to the doomsayers. We saw a similar downturn in the early 90s. People were saying that jobs would never come back, yadda, yadda, yadda. They were wrong then -- and they're wrong now. In fact, we're in the midst of a recovery. But you have to be willing to change, learn, and grow. Those who aren't ... well ... they're in the wrong business.

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[RightWhale]

What needs to be taught at college level (preferably community colleges) to help the IT industry rebound?

Won't happen. Things are changing yet again in American industry [or still changing.] You can't have freedom to be human while you have to work to support yourself. The only thing that comes close, for most Americans, to freedom is retirement. So work for that, and be happy the government is doing everything it can to keep the economy afloat so your retirement is guaranteed. Remember Johnny Appleseed and Thoreau. Both were free, but both were wealthy. Johnny Appleseed actually owned those orchards. Thoreau found wealth another way. Both were retired.

Don't commit to a life of debt. Clear out the plastic, and look at all your stuff, ask what is all that stuff for.

[lelio]

We saw a similar downturn in the early 90s. People were saying that jobs would never come back,

That almost sounds like a thumbs up for Clinton and the bubble economy.

[wbill]

Thank you, Joe. Good Points, all.

The key is to look at this long term. Understandably, those that are out of work do not have that luxury.

The days of working for a single company for 40 years and retiring are over.....the minute that a company can save a $ by outsourcing, they will, if for no other reason than to stay in business.

By-and-large, the same people that holler about protection buy the cheapest products on the market. The way to produce those cheap products is to import them from overseas. A plant manger in Mexico that I work with summed it up best. He said, "You can pay Americans $9-10 an hour to do these manufacturing jobs, and they'll get pi$$ed off and quit. You can pay Mexicans $9-10 a day to do the same thing, and they'll love it, because it's 2-3x what they could make elsewhere."

And you're absolutely right about the quality of the work, and what comes around goes around. We recently outsourced our service desk to India and the quality has been terrible. We're currently looking to outsource our telecomm and networking - solutions like India have been taken off the table. It'll still get outsourced, but will stay in the USA.

[discostu]

As a QA guy the two things I'd like to see taught are:
Thinking is more important than coding, this isn't like writing a book you need to know how it's going to end before you write
Don't be a chickensh!t about unit tests, too many coders only hit the parts of the code they're confident in before handing it off to somebody, go after the parts that confused you that's where all the bugs are and either QA or the customer will dash your hopes of that code flying

At my last company I had a mantra that I managed to sell to dev: I don't want any code you're not proud of. It works, you get better code, everybody works less OT and deadlines are easier to meet.

[Poohbah]

I would add that folks should be learning more about formal testing methods and sensible project management techniques. Documentation is a fact of life, yet few people can write even mediocre material.

Then I would suggest more writing courses--basic composition, business writing, and technical writing.

I'm not a professional developer, but I've helped manage software projects and found that bad design makes for 80% of your problems. We had one team that tried to do a straight translation of assembly language code from 1969 to Java in 1999. It didn't work.

[lelio]

Pryor said. "It frees up people and dollars to do much more value-added strategic things for clients."

The "let them eat cake" defense. What's more likely is that the person that's trying to get into an entry level tech job will now be freed up to strategically clean a pool.

[Lazamataz]

And you're absolutely right about the quality of the work, and what comes around goes around. We recently outsourced our service desk to India and the quality has been terrible. We're currently looking to outsource our telecomm and networking - solutions like India have been taken off the table. It'll still get outsourced, but will stay in the USA.

Just as I thought.

[Ciexyz]

Reality sucks, doesn't it.

[warchild9]

Verizon announced in the Wall Street Journal in June that they're increasing the number of IT jobs in India by "at least 75%", and are "moving aggressively in Viet Nam". I can't give you the date, but I'll bet you can search it up if you want to. In 2005, the barriers come down in Southeast Asia, India, and Russia, which means the multinationals can use our tax money to ship more positions and production overseas. It's just going to get worse, and W is accelerating the process, regardless of what the heads-in-the-sand bots want to think.

[Lazamataz]

Unless you are involved in an export controlled product, work in national defense, manufacture products with a high ratio of retail price to shipping cost, or provide services to those who are left, your US-based job is evaporating before your eyes. We're talking major deflation spiral in the works. This is gonna get ugly.

We're all gonna die!!!!

[Lazamataz]

Unless you are involved in an export controlled product, work in national defense, manufacture products with a high ratio of retail price to shipping cost, or provide services to those who are left, your US-based job is evaporating before your eyes. We're talking major deflation spiral in the works. This is gonna get ugly.

We're all gonna die!!!!

[Coleus]

I think I'm going to donate just so I don't have to see that picture anymore :^)

Thanks for the work that you do.

[Destructor]

Exactly! More misinformation from the Chicken Little Club.

[Lazamataz]

Verizon announced in the Wall Street Journal in June that they're increasing the number of IT jobs in India by "at least 75%", and are "moving aggressively in Viet Nam".

I saw none of these headlines. I did, however, see this report:

June 13, 2003
Report: Amdocs, Verizon Negotiating Outsourcing Deal

Amdocs (Quote, Company Info), a provider of billing, customer relationship management and directory services, is reportedly negotiating a lucrative contract with Verizon (Quote, Company Info).

The proposed five-year pact is worth around $700 million and could rise to $1 billion, according to U.S. telecom industry sources cited by Globes, an Israeli business publication (Amdocs is based in Chesterfield, Mo., but has a strong presence in Israel.)

Amdocs seems to be largely a US concern, albiet with a business unit in Israel, but the outsourcing looks to be mostly confined to Chesterfield.

There may be other things in the works as well, but this one is worth 700 mil.

[warchild9]

It's something, at least. I can ask the Mrs. about the reports last month; she wrote a couple of articles concerning this topic in May-June, but I'll admit I considered it more of the same and didn't pay close attention.

[stanz]

Didn't we discuss the two incidents I had with Dell and with Hewlett Packard where I was patched through to tech reps in India? The woman at HP could barely speak English and it took so long for her to arrange a replacement of my speakers. The guy at Dell kept referrring to my system as "dementia" instead of Dimensions. What a hoot! It wasn't very funny at the time.

[Tin-Legions]

My wife works for a huge competitor of Verizon. The jobs they are outsourcing are the ones with little customer service involved. Most high skill,tech companies have found out that no one with big bucks on the line appreciates talking with a techie who can't speak a lick of proper English. However, her company has still sent many mid level/pay jobs to India. They are not likely to come back home under current conditions.