Outsourcing Developer's Job
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The best way to protect your job is to be needed. You have worked for your company for a long time. You know the product. You add value to them. Stress blinds people. Take a step back, cool down, listen to your management. Why did they hire the offshore developers? Is it only cost related? Do they wont to convert your product to a technology that requires skills that the local team doesnt have? What is it? How fast can you become an expert in it? be friendly with your manager. Tell them your plans. be willing to go to take a course in whatever direction your company is taking. offer to share the expense with your compant. Even if you had to leave the company you are C/C++ developer with many years of experience. You are not going to starve anytime soon.
Well, they kept 1/2 our team, and I made that cut. They kept us for our business and application knowledge. For now they want us helping with requirements and testing on the back end and keep doing design work that we always did. Unfortunately they won't tell us their long range plans for us. My feeling is they don't know. By the looks of things so far, they are just winging this whole thing and making it up as they go.
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I am suppose to get $300 plus a month for retirement from a place I worked 16 years ago (after working there 15 years) but a friend who still works there says there may not be a pension at all as the current management is killing the company. :~
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LunaticFringe wrote:
that had to be one of the most telling moves of the McCain campaign, when Fiorina started appearing on the stage with McCain,
Yea, both the utterly incomprehensible mistakes of that campaign keep coming back and not shutting up... What gets me is that people keep talking about her as if she was a good CEO. They all gloss over her being forced out, the company being run into the ground and people losing jobs while they ordered up 3 jets... It's as if people expect us to be unable to do basic research on the web. :/
ragnaroknrol wrote:
Yea, both the utterly incomprehensible mistakes of that campaign keep coming back and not shutting up...
Ah, but they're both darlings of the far right. And lets face it; the brilliance of the Republican party for the 40 or so years leading up to the last election cycle was this: they managed to convince the very people who were being screwed by their policies to support them. ;)
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ragnaroknrol wrote:
Yea, both the utterly incomprehensible mistakes of that campaign keep coming back and not shutting up...
Ah, but they're both darlings of the far right. And lets face it; the brilliance of the Republican party for the 40 or so years leading up to the last election cycle was this: they managed to convince the very people who were being screwed by their policies to support them. ;)
We're getting firmly into politics now. I'll not go much further. I will ask why a group of people manage to blatently lie during a debate (took me 30 seconds on google to find the statement which one person denied making) and the other group failed to make good on this? It isn't that one party has managed to screw their people and gotten away with it. It's that the other group refuses to actually grow a spine and call them on it. Even the current situation shows this to be the truth. You can lie all you want when the other guy refuses to call you on it and nail you to the wall for it. But get burned really hard once for it and you might stop. And Fiorina needs to be shown for what she is. I don't care that she's a woman (she's played this card.) I care that she is a selfish monster that failed at basic human decency towards employees and can't even manage to use this trait to do well in the business world. And who thought that a well to do company known for quality products buying a dying company known for selling junk would adopt the dead company's business model?
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God she's horrible. She now wants to run for a seat in California. Like a few thousand people still don't remember being laid off so she could get another jet... She ran that company to the point where it was nearly dead and then blamed her being thrown out on sexism. My wife got a laptop when Fiorina was in charge. PoS won't even boot anymore cause the design was so bad the board fried from stardard use. Being told to get a household fan and have it pointing at the keyboard so the keys won't burn your hands while it is running by a one of their tech tells me something bad.
A few years back we bought an Hp computer and kept it for less than 2 years and in that time the monitor broke and the hard drive fried multiple times. The computers made out of vaccum tubes were probably more reliable than this thing. Finally we gave up on it because it had so many problems and bought a dell and haven't had any problems since. Funiest thing is when you call tech support for help they try to sell you other products while you are on the phone with them.
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Yeah, my biggest problem is that I have 17 years into a 25 year pension. Believe it or not UPS still offers old timers a pension. My wife can't work for health problems, and the pension pays out until both of us die. Just don't know if I can make it 9 more years the way things are going. It just started this year and we're already wading knee deep in it...
And you expect that offer to still be there 8+ years from now? Are you vested (if so, then you should be able to retire at normal retirement age and get some pension benefits - if they still pay a pension). I work for a big MultiNational that has significant operations in India. Judging by the turnover rate and the quality of a lot of the new Indian folks, you are in for an adventure. If you are in the eastern time zone, the 10.5 hr time difference makes teleconferencing a pain, the re are only a few hours early in the morning (late in the day for them) when there is overlap. There is a language barrier (we don't speak the same flavor of English at all, and if you are older, the pitch and speed differences don't help). This is compounded by a tendency on the part of Indians to pretend to understand even if they haven't a clue (I think it has to do with not wanting to look stupid -many are not at all- , but this is a huge mistake and the cause of much grief)... Review the code they write carefully. Make sure it conforms to design and requirements, and insist on unit tests or integration tests - review these as well. If you stay, you will spend the next 8 years (or less) basically training your replacements via long distance teleconference. You department will shrink, because you company has embarked on replacing you and all US based workers with cheaper labor overseas. There ought to be a law...:mad:
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We're getting firmly into politics now. I'll not go much further. I will ask why a group of people manage to blatently lie during a debate (took me 30 seconds on google to find the statement which one person denied making) and the other group failed to make good on this? It isn't that one party has managed to screw their people and gotten away with it. It's that the other group refuses to actually grow a spine and call them on it. Even the current situation shows this to be the truth. You can lie all you want when the other guy refuses to call you on it and nail you to the wall for it. But get burned really hard once for it and you might stop. And Fiorina needs to be shown for what she is. I don't care that she's a woman (she's played this card.) I care that she is a selfish monster that failed at basic human decency towards employees and can't even manage to use this trait to do well in the business world. And who thought that a well to do company known for quality products buying a dying company known for selling junk would adopt the dead company's business model?
ragnaroknrol wrote:
We're getting firmly into politics now.
Yup.
ragnaroknrol wrote:
It isn't that one party has managed to screw their people and gotten away with it. It's that the other group refuses to actually grow a spine and call them on it. Even the current situation shows this to be the truth. You can lie all you want when the other guy refuses to call you on it and nail you to the wall for it. But get burned really hard once for it and you might stop.
Yup. The past year has demonstrated that the once opposition is just as useless as when they were the minority.
ragnaroknrol wrote:
And Fiorina needs to be shown for what she is. I don't care that she's a woman (she's played this card.) I care that she is a selfish monster that failed at basic human decency towards employees and can't even manage to use this trait to do well in the business world. And who thought that a well to do company known for quality products buying a dying company known for selling junk would adopt the dead company's business model?
There was a time when Bell Labs and HP were the two pre-eminent research companies in the country, maybe in the world. Took the justice dept. to destroy the one; Carly trashed the second all by herself. :laugh:
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Well, we have separate pension and stock. And we are partially vested in pension at 10 yrs and fully at 25 yrs. From what little I know about pensions, they are regulated and they owe me the portion I'm vested for even if they do away with pensions. Of course like you say, they could give it to me in stock and then turn around and make me sell it.
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Well, we have separate pension and stock. And we are partially vested in pension at 10 yrs and fully at 25 yrs. From what little I know about pensions, they are regulated and they owe me the portion I'm vested for even if they do away with pensions. Of course like you say, they could give it to me in stock and then turn around and make me sell it.
The defined benefit plan is regulated by Employee Retirement Investment Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and the Pension Protection Act of 2006. These are administered by the Emplyee Benefits Security Administration[^] of the Department of Labor. The linked EBSA website has a lot of information on the subject that you may wish to peruse (This is some particularly good info)[^], as it is complex, and your exact rights and protections depend on the type of pension (yours sounds like defined benefit plan, not a 401K). If you do not also have a 401K plan, you should consider protecting yourself with a traditional or Roth IRA. Every little bit helps.
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Has anyone been through a cycle or outsourcing at their company? UPS is in the process of outsourcing coding, unit testing and integration testing to India. They are starting with 10% of projects as pilot phase. For most of the developers on my project, that's the part of development that we enjoy. We put up with requirement, testing and design meetings and tasks, just so we get to write code. Just wandering what we have to look forward to, and if it is worth staying and waiting it out. One of our best developers has left already and looks like others are testing the water.
I have worked with a number of companies that decided to outsource to India, and it has always been a disaster. 1) They are a whole world away, and if you to talk to them, you have to get up at 3 am. 2) If you don't spell out VERY CLEARLY exactly what you want, you won't get it. 3) When we did get results, they were not very good. We ended up reworking alot of the project 4) You better be prepared for a project management nightmare. In the end, the savings gained bu outsourcing is lost in rework and time lost to project managament. In my opinion, go work somewhere that still values quality work and the American worker.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind
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ragnaroknrol wrote:
We're getting firmly into politics now.
Yup.
ragnaroknrol wrote:
It isn't that one party has managed to screw their people and gotten away with it. It's that the other group refuses to actually grow a spine and call them on it. Even the current situation shows this to be the truth. You can lie all you want when the other guy refuses to call you on it and nail you to the wall for it. But get burned really hard once for it and you might stop.
Yup. The past year has demonstrated that the once opposition is just as useless as when they were the minority.
ragnaroknrol wrote:
And Fiorina needs to be shown for what she is. I don't care that she's a woman (she's played this card.) I care that she is a selfish monster that failed at basic human decency towards employees and can't even manage to use this trait to do well in the business world. And who thought that a well to do company known for quality products buying a dying company known for selling junk would adopt the dead company's business model?
There was a time when Bell Labs and HP were the two pre-eminent research companies in the country, maybe in the world. Took the justice dept. to destroy the one; Carly trashed the second all by herself. :laugh:
Funny how quickly the right person can take something good and turn it into complete trash... And just think, she wants to bring this expertise to government! On second thought, maybe that would actually help... Viva la revolucion!
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I have worked with a number of companies that decided to outsource to India, and it has always been a disaster. 1) They are a whole world away, and if you to talk to them, you have to get up at 3 am. 2) If you don't spell out VERY CLEARLY exactly what you want, you won't get it. 3) When we did get results, they were not very good. We ended up reworking alot of the project 4) You better be prepared for a project management nightmare. In the end, the savings gained bu outsourcing is lost in rework and time lost to project managament. In my opinion, go work somewhere that still values quality work and the American worker.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind
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Has anyone been through a cycle or outsourcing at their company? UPS is in the process of outsourcing coding, unit testing and integration testing to India. They are starting with 10% of projects as pilot phase. For most of the developers on my project, that's the part of development that we enjoy. We put up with requirement, testing and design meetings and tasks, just so we get to write code. Just wandering what we have to look forward to, and if it is worth staying and waiting it out. One of our best developers has left already and looks like others are testing the water.
app1dak wrote:
outsourcing at their company
Yes we did that for a bit. Fortunately for us, we didn't have to lose billions to figure out that it was not worthwhile. We only lost 100K and I lost many hours redoing everything that we paid them to do. So now we do not outsource.
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Has anyone been through a cycle or outsourcing at their company? UPS is in the process of outsourcing coding, unit testing and integration testing to India. They are starting with 10% of projects as pilot phase. For most of the developers on my project, that's the part of development that we enjoy. We put up with requirement, testing and design meetings and tasks, just so we get to write code. Just wandering what we have to look forward to, and if it is worth staying and waiting it out. One of our best developers has left already and looks like others are testing the water.
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Has anyone been through a cycle or outsourcing at their company? UPS is in the process of outsourcing coding, unit testing and integration testing to India. They are starting with 10% of projects as pilot phase. For most of the developers on my project, that's the part of development that we enjoy. We put up with requirement, testing and design meetings and tasks, just so we get to write code. Just wandering what we have to look forward to, and if it is worth staying and waiting it out. One of our best developers has left already and looks like others are testing the water.
I've had to deal with outsourced developers in India and it was an utter nightmare. UPS probably has enough money to fly over there, interview in person and hire decent developers, tho. In which case, I'd say run for it.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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On the bright side, are you a good developer? Do you have good communication skills? Can you turn this into an opportunity to take a lead/management position. Your company needs people to manager the offshore groups technically and manegrial wise and that person may be you.
Yeah?? Every person I've seen take that position has burned at the stake because of the failed garbage that came back from off shore. Even in my current job, we had to rework every package that came back just to make it conform to a set of basic standards, and then we had to FIX them all.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008
But no longer in 2009... -
Yeah?? Every person I've seen take that position has burned at the stake because of the failed garbage that came back from off shore. Even in my current job, we had to rework every package that came back just to make it conform to a set of basic standards, and then we had to FIX them all.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008
But no longer in 2009...There are some briliant programmers in India, if you dont believe search codeproject and you would see some great articles written by indian programmers in India. The fact that you know people that worked with some crappy developers doesnt make that a fact appliable to every situation. Please understand that I am not saying its an easy job. Working with people of different cultures is not walk in the park. But I speak from experience as I have seen successfull cases. Its really all about management.
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There are some briliant programmers in India, if you dont believe search codeproject and you would see some great articles written by indian programmers in India. The fact that you know people that worked with some crappy developers doesnt make that a fact appliable to every situation. Please understand that I am not saying its an easy job. Working with people of different cultures is not walk in the park. But I speak from experience as I have seen successfull cases. Its really all about management.
Bassam Saoud wrote:
There are some briliant programmers in India
Oh, I don't deny that. I've met a few and they do a fantastic job. But, Corporate America seems to think that these brilliant programmers, and other IT people, grow on trees out there.
Bassam Saoud wrote:
The fact that you know people that worked with some crappy developers doesnt make that a fact appliable to every situation
No, no, no. I didn't say that I know people who have worked with them. I said I worked with them! The number of crappy IT people FAR AND AWAY outnumbers the number of good ones.
Bassam Saoud wrote:
Its really all about management.
This is only true to a point. There's too many people out there trying to make a rupee by jumping on the outsourcing bandwagon. So, they hire as many contractors as they can hoping they can do the work that the contract company just won the bid for.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008
But no longer in 2009... -
I have worked with a number of companies that decided to outsource to India, and it has always been a disaster. 1) They are a whole world away, and if you to talk to them, you have to get up at 3 am. 2) If you don't spell out VERY CLEARLY exactly what you want, you won't get it. 3) When we did get results, they were not very good. We ended up reworking alot of the project 4) You better be prepared for a project management nightmare. In the end, the savings gained bu outsourcing is lost in rework and time lost to project managament. In my opinion, go work somewhere that still values quality work and the American worker.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind
Kevin Marois wrote:
- If you don't spell out VERY CLEARLY exactly what you want, you won't get it.
Doesn't that happen often with every customer and development team?
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail! Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person. - Chanakya
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I've had to deal with outsourced developers in India and it was an utter nightmare. UPS probably has enough money to fly over there, interview in person and hire decent developers, tho. In which case, I'd say run for it.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
Unfortunately they contracted to hire the company, not any specific resources, so the contracting company is doing the hiring. We just get atempt to train them on application and business rules. Anyway, thanks for the forum. A lot of sarcastic remarks from the developers (I guess it's the same all over), but a lot of good info too.