Hiring off shore

Thu Nov 10 22:35:47 MST 2016

I worked for a predominantly Indian outsourcing company. I did not find my
co-workers low skilled or under-educated. They had real experience and were
competent. Accusing the professionals who benefit from offshoring of being
incompetent is idle racist nativism. Furthermore, in a Global economy,
American IT workers have no more right to a job or gig than anyone else. If
the foreigners out compete you, too bad, that's how capitalism works.

I am disabled, and I think the Americans with Disabilities Act is a
dreadful piece of legislation. It trys to require for-profit companies to
hire contrary to their tangible self interest in terms of cost or profit.

Trent.

On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 10:14 PM Eric Oyen <eric.oyen at icloud.com> wrote:

> hello everyone,
> I would like to chime in here.
>
> firstly, there is an old adage: you get what you pay for. So, if you want
> cheap programmers and developers, expect cheap (and usually sloppy) results.
> secondly, I have been trying for several years to get work as a linux
> admin, only to not hear from anyone when the words "visually impaired" or
> "blind" turn up in either my cover or resume. In those rare cases where I
> did manage to get to an interview, I got the impression that I wouldn't be
> hired (simply because of that white cane I use). btw, there is a wall
> street journal article on this that details why HR managers won't fire the
> blind.
> thirdly, I gave up about 4 years ago searching for work because no one was
> hiring (apparently), unless you happened to be either an H1-B visa holder
> or were in another country where wages were a lot lower).
>
> Now, I am not whining about the fact that I am blind. I am, however,
> pointing out that my particular population segment gets hit a lot harder by
> this off shore hiring than most. So, if you want to hire, look locally
> first BEFORE you consider some overseas lower wage workers. You might end
> up with better results, better quality and better attitudes. Folks here are
> desperately looking and not finding and they are willing to take a bit of a
> pay cut if it means they are employed given current conditions.
>
> So, think about that extra money you *THINK* that you are saving by hiring
> overseas. Well, you aren't. Between the lower quality, bad coding
> practices, poor administration skills and a bevy of other issues, that
> money saved gets soaked when your customers go elsewhere because they got
> tired of dealing with "john smith" of india (or some other country).
>
> just my 2 cents worth for what it is.
>
> -Eric (the other eric, that is).
>
> On Nov 10, 2016, at 6:02 PM, Michael Butash wrote:
>
> On 11/08/2016 04:37 PM, Todd Millecam wrote:
>
> To me, your role is closest to that of a parasite.  You aren't doing any
> real work, you aren't making anything new.   I'd assert that in this
> scenario you are not helping your community, you're taking advantage of
> them in nearly every case.
>
> So are most "recruiting firms" like Teksystems, and frankly even my
> current org to some extent, still I think much as you often do here.  I
> have found people contact me/us, because we have good reputation, and they
> expect we can find other suitable candidates are are most *like* us.  I
> find them someone, screen them for cruft, pass them along a suitable
> candidate, and did this for free for people for years, before realizing the
> really crappy ones even get 15-30% of their salary in exchange barely
> parasitic effort vs. my actually vetting them both personally and
> professionally.  Most are usually happy to even pay, as they both trust our
> judgment and saved them a hassle of having to sort through hundreds or
> thousands of resumes.
>
> The flip side, I get calls, emails, linkedin notices for jobs constantly
> from "recruiting firms" that send me random things like ".Net developer
> needed" or "Call Center Agents starting at $9.60/hr" because apparently
> they don't know the difference between me building call centers to working
> in one.  I think most can attest to my love of microsoft anything that the
> former is likewise not appropriate, but since most are coming from Indian
> names, I usually can presume there is a call center full of these folks
> doing nothing more than scamming to make a buck, the Wipros and InfoSys's
> just developed a better pimp hand in the same scheme at a higher level.  I
> can only imagine the guys jumping on these "wonderful opportunities" there
> trying to get over here, enough to fake an equally clueless acting
> recruiter there.
>
> Hire an offshore dev and it won't be to specification, and you're most
> likely going to generate a subpar UX at best.  You're burning your
> relationship with your clients by delivering crap.  You are probably
> helping the offshore dev's community the most.
>
> I've found most of these "engagements" to be traps, really.  You almost
> never get a real, finished, quality product (pick 2! maybe 1, sometimes
> none), and as you said, subpar at best.  It seems the promise is often more
> with 3-10 offshore engineers provided for any one american engineer, and
> you're bound to get *some* better value.  Not imho, but I know plenty of
> american dirtbags that still get around in the industry somehow too making
> far more still too.
>
> Hire someone locally at fair consulting wages, and really what value are
> you?  If they take the time and do a direct hire, then they cut out the
> middle man (your costs) and get to devote more money to building a better
> product and a healthy business relationship.  More money to the final
> product absolutely helps the community.
>
> Local resources, in the office, and actually becoming part of their team
> is necessary.  Any time I've worked for, been to, or been around mega-corps
> that do H1B, it almost becomes a perpetual cycle of fail.  The ones most
> often cheering for more H1B's like Oracle, Microsoft, Google, and lots of
> local sweatshops even also coincidentally often have heavy penetration of
> Indian management too.  Bringin' back something for da hood - theirs.
>
> I saw this at one corp I'll decline to name to protect the stupid, talked
> about how big of a prior failure a crm rewrite was, how many millions were
> lost on it ~(50m I think was a number tossed), and everyone from csr's to
> management hated, and was practically a 4 letter word.  Promises would be
> made that the 2.0 version would be better, they learned from their lessons,
> reviled the company that did it (one of the mega Indian outsource firms,
> again protecting the stupid), and said it would be better.  They ended up
> giving it back to the same company, at triple the bid to "try again", went
> forward with the 2.0 project.  SMH, wha?
>
> After working with the engineers for a week after kickoff, it was quite
> apparently their people had no clue how to run the servers, build the apps,
> and simply hired a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears grad students pooped out of
> whatever they consider education/certification there, and while not stupid,
> had no experience, and in most cases, much common sense.  It_was_painful to
> watch unfolding if not rather comedic if considered as bofh-ish or
> dilbertonian at how it should likely end.
>
> I'm presuming there had to be some monumental credit/cash earned somewhere
> in doing this, either way stunk as bad as the garbage dump.  This was also
> not the first or last time seeing the same since, cycle of pain repeats at
> most larger orgs as they outgrow their skins almost habitually and follow
> bad example in ousourcing as an alternative.
>
> It was one of the proverbial straws that made me move on in my choice to
> do so.  Years later, I've heard recounts how miserable a failure that was
> too from acquaintances come/gone/staying, so ad nauseum, some ~$200m
> absorbed somewhere, for some awful reasons as I saw it coldly.
>
> Now, if you can justify your $85/hour and prove that you are adding that
> value to the product then you're lubricant in the wheels of business and
> needed to prevent gridlock.  In any case, if I could use the analogy of a
> chemical reaction, you play either the role of an impurity or a
> catalyst--but in no situation are you a significant part of the solution so
> your take should be reflective of that.
>
> What I find suspect is really that these things like said example above
> seem to have absolutely no rational sense when you look at them from the
> surface, that you wonder just how it could be done at all, let alone the
> fact I was internal to the engineering that showed nothing good was ever
> going to come of the clueless bastards they were unleashing.  I've seen
> empirical data both first hand and third party that says it simply does not
> work, not just the above, but many times within the past 15 years, in many
> different orgs and even state/local to lesser extents.
>
> Cisco is a good example of this, that you could plot a line in customer
> satisfaction and product quality on a distinct decline with the amount of
> outsourcing they began during the end of the 90's.  It really made nothing
> better, it just gave them better on-paper bottom lines as they were
> plumping like a fat hog with rotten guts, but you also began to see more
> and more Indian management.  In networking they're still the 3000lb hog
> that still succeeds like bad government, but their quality (read,
> stability) itself is often merely a shell of what it once was as a real
> leader.  Simply too big to fail now either way, so why not do it dirty.
>
> I often find the reasons suspect in outsourcing decisions too.  Again in
> my experience, is once one outsourced person rises high enough, it's like
> the mob - they hire more out of gratuity or responsibility to their people,
> despite how frigging terrible the people are.  Suddenly justifications are
> much easier and glossed over when the manager is the same, wants to bring
> their cousins over to pimp^H^H^H^Hmake a better life.  Corporate and
> national nepotism at its finest.
>
> It has become a warning sign to me for a company how bad it will be when
> there are certain percentages or samplings of "those folks" at a place.  I
> remember walking around another large financial org here on an interview
> ages ago, entering the building felt like I just stepped off a bus in
> Bangalore, and was pretty much instantly disinterested in ever working
> there.  Now I just figure out before ever stepping foot near a place.
>
> YMMV
>
> -mb
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 2:23 PM, Eric Cope <eric.cope at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> are you burning that $85? Will you save (which is then invested either
> through loans or invested in the market, same thing) or spend (which does
> affect the community)?
> If you can create value for your customer, and you can find someone
> willing to work for less, then it sounds fine to me.
>
> Thats called creating wealth.
>
> On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 1:19 PM, Keith Smith <techlists at phpcoderusa.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hi,
>
> I am a PHP programmer and I have a knack for Internet marketing.
>
> Say I decide to build a lead site or cultivate leads from the greater
> phoenix area.  Projects you may qualify for.  Then I hire an off shore
> developer.  I pay this off shore developer $12 - $15 an hour while charging
> my client $100 or more an hour.  I line my pockets with $85 plus and hour.
>
> Does this course of action help my community?
>
> What if my choice was to pay you a fair wage (or consulting fee) to work
> the project or hire that off shore developer for 25% of what your willing
> to work for?  I would make much less as well.
>
> I'd like you to tell me what to do.  Hire you or someone off shore.
> Please tell me what to do.
>
> Keith
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>
>
> --
> Todd Millecam
>
>
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