Commodity Skills
If you haven’t read Chad Fowler’s “My Job Went to India“, do so now. Like many of my peers, I’m wondering what will become of our industry as more and more work moves to countries with lower labor costs (I’ll leave out an obligatory analysis of the increased communication costs that often offset the cheaper wages). Anyway, Chad’s book offers some great advice on how to lessen the likelihood that *your* job will find it’s way to Mumbai.
One way to avoid the outsource machine is simple - supply and demand. Rather than polishing commodity skills, spend your personal development effort on technologies that the major off shore houses aren’t looking at yet (cough, Ruby, cough). It may seem a bit counterintuitive (like the long tail concept) but being fluent in a niche like Lisp could actually make you more employable than being yet another ASP guy. Not sure what to focus on? Take a look at Google Trends…
A very wise man asked me the other night how I cost justified spending my own hard earned cash on Rails training and I replied that I see it as an investment. I still earn the majority of my income on Java work but I realize that our industry changes every day - staying ahead of that keeps me employable.
January 21st, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Don’t be silly. Our jobs aren’t moving to Mumbai.
OK, Bangalore or Hyderabad maybe, but not Mumbai.
I agree - studying niche technology (and keeping up your skills in general) means maybe we still have a chance. I saw where the outsourcing trend was actually going down though last year. Some outsourcing works, but a lot of it requires effort that managers aren’t willing to make to manage the projects correctly and some out sourcing projects don’t do well because of time differences and language barriers.
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Globalization is a good thing. The technology that we love has allowed it to happen in ways that were never imagined. The idea of people working on a global scale, whether that is outsourcing to the Balkans or building Skype, is incredible.
Don’t think protectionism (trade barriers, tarrifs, farm subsidies). Think about the “Big I”, Innovation. Creativity is valuable in all forms. Creativity, expressed through code, yielding innovation is the most valuable thing around. Fulfillment or grinding through requirements, that is about cost management. Innovating and creating new products, that is value!
January 27th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Don’t get me wrong Jamie - I’m not advocating tariffs or any thing of the sort. Ultimately a global marketplace benefits us all through cheaper goods and even more consumers to sell our wares to. However, we all need to take responsibility for our careers and make sure that we’re staying abreast of what’s happening (thus my class at the U this semester). Still, I think we need to address issues surrounding portable benefits (especially health care) as well as make sure individuals impacted by off shoring have access to education and retraining.
Still, to get to Greg’s point, I think many companies don’t grasp the full costs of moving work to other countries. While lots of great stuff can (and is) built leveraging skilled developers where ever they happen to live, communication overhead adds up. To add to that “hidden” fee, wages in many countries are rising further decreasing any savings from moving work off shore. Of course that won’t stop most executives
Lots of great opportunities, that’s for sure.
Anyway, thanks for the comments guys!