IT Jobs going overseas?
Sunday, October 12, 2003 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
What, if anything, can be done to keep IT jobs from going overseas?
Inte's Andy Grove warns that the US IT industry could go the same way as the US steel industry.
Read The Register article for the full story.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/33339.html
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Reply #22 Tuesday, October 14, 2003 11:38 PM
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).
Reply #23 Tuesday, October 14, 2003 11:59 PM
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.
Reply #24 Wednesday, October 15, 2003 1:41 AM
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.
Reply #25 Wednesday, October 15, 2003 10:31 AM
Reply #26 Wednesday, October 15, 2003 1:23 PM
There have been numerous articles in Infoworld and Information Week that talk about how quickly they crank out the IT people in India. You can train a decent IT person in a year. A veteran in 2 years.
I'm not talking 2 years out of college. I mean 2 years after high school as long as they already have a solid background in using computers, the Internet, etc.
I am sure an IT person with 8 years experience having gone to a 4 year Univerisity previous to that disagrees but it's people like me that hire IT people. An 8 year veteran is going to be massively better still than the 2 year veteran but it's not specialists and experts that are losing their jobs to India. It's the rank and file database admins, ASP/PHP developers, etc.
Reply #27 Wednesday, October 15, 2003 7:30 PM
Absolutely...Teir 1, 2, and some of 3 are the ones typically targeted.
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Reply #21 Tuesday, October 14, 2003 6:35 PM
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.
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.
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.