Uber CEO Wants to Shift More Engineering Jobs to India, Sparking Internal Debate(theinformation.com)
theinformation.com
Uber CEO Wants to Shift More Engineering Jobs to India, Sparking Internal Debate
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/uber-ceo-wants-to-shift-more-engineering-jobs-to-india-sparking-internal-debate
223 comments
The real question for me is why would Uber investors put the kind of management that view software as a cost center? In this context that's a pessimistic signal for their future, at least for their current valuation, if not the sign of a death spiral.
Because they are competing against competitors with equal level of product but with majority od developers in low labor cost countries. Thats a recipe for sure loss.
In the US the only real competition is Lyft, who is definitely not treating software as a cost center.
Well, im not sure about that. You should look at their hiring page right now and see that they are heavily increasing their presence in european tech centers.
Additionally, Uber is focusing on being a global superapp company, not just the US (its just their cash cow).
Additionally, Uber is focusing on being a global superapp company, not just the US (its just their cash cow).
I'm surprised Uber considered itself a software company at all. They are a contractor management company.
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I don't see any reason (except for juicing their valuation) to consider Uber as a software company. Their product is not software: it's taxi cabs.
A ride hailing app is more or less a commodity, see all the Uber clones out there: Lyft, Gett, Arro, Flywheel, Kapten...
A ride hailing app is more or less a commodity, see all the Uber clones out there: Lyft, Gett, Arro, Flywheel, Kapten...
>Uber as a software company. Their product is not software: it's taxi cabs.
That's not accurate. They have software to match riders to drivers while optimally setting the price of the trip based on the current demand/supply. It has to work in many different cities while preventing fraud and/or gaming of the system. It's a legitimately hard engineering problem that requires sophisticated software solutions.
That's not accurate. They have software to match riders to drivers while optimally setting the price of the trip based on the current demand/supply. It has to work in many different cities while preventing fraud and/or gaming of the system. It's a legitimately hard engineering problem that requires sophisticated software solutions.
It is not that hard, however. Every copycat mentioned above replicated it using a few dozen programmers, as did Yandex and Didi and Bolt.
The competitive advantage does not lie in the software quality for Uber, but in other things (customer install base, driver base, brand awareness).
The competitive advantage does not lie in the software quality for Uber, but in other things (customer install base, driver base, brand awareness).
That's true for all the FAANGs except Apple and parts of Google. For example, a few dozen programmers can easily whip up a credible competitor to Facebook. The problem is getting enough users to compete.
I would tend to disagree with this. Facebook's customer is advertisers, which inherently requires scale/ad placements + live auction system + the FB graph matchmaking. I am not familiar with the internals of Uber, but they earn revenue if they can get a rider in a car, pay both parties, and then take a cut.
> For example, a few dozen programmers can easily whip up a credible competitor to Facebook.
This is one of those oft-repeated tropes on HN that needs to be out out to pasture for good.
No, you can't do the same job with a few dozen engineers that is currently taking the market leader many thousands of engineers to pull off. That's just hubris. The reality is that it's more complicated than you yet realize, and if you were to really delve into it you'd see the fractal complexity.
This is one of those oft-repeated tropes on HN that needs to be out out to pasture for good.
No, you can't do the same job with a few dozen engineers that is currently taking the market leader many thousands of engineers to pull off. That's just hubris. The reality is that it's more complicated than you yet realize, and if you were to really delve into it you'd see the fractal complexity.
We've seen Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram, and Twitter off the top of my head build out competing social networks with dozens of engineers (or less).
And then the problem is scaling rapidly enough to handle those users. A whole lot of the engineers at FAANGs are running infrastructure that, for the startup with zero users, doesn’t exist.
But do they sell that software/technology?
As far as I can tell they sell taxi rides, software "just" helps/supports their core business.
Fundamentally, their product is an app that the riders and drivers pay them to use. I don't think the fact that they use it to do something in the real world changes that Uber is a software company.
I think that's a very short-sighted answer. Besides their actual core business, they are also building technology for self-driving cars. I would say, Yes, they are selling technology/software.
I don't think moving tech labor form US workers to Indian workers will have the desired effect that corporate decision makers are hoping for.
For one, good tech workers are hard to find anywhere. A candidate needs a range of attributes to be effective at this type of work. That type of talent is hard enough to find in the western world, it will likely be just as hard to find in the east.
Two, Indian tech labor isn't that cheap, a conclusion I draw from my own anecdotal experience. My first job was working for what you may call a "body shop" that was US based with US only employees. The owner started the business after doing sales for an off-shore, India-based "body shop," and he did it bc cost of labor was approaching the cost of labor of US workers, and the US workers would tend to produce higher quality (less defective) work (his words, not mine). No idea what the details were, but he has a thriving business.
Finally, there might be a lot going on right now, but why haven't companies outsourced sooner when there was nothing stopping them (even visas were easier to come by before Trump)? I believe they have contemplated it, and changed their minds for good reason.
For one, good tech workers are hard to find anywhere. A candidate needs a range of attributes to be effective at this type of work. That type of talent is hard enough to find in the western world, it will likely be just as hard to find in the east.
Two, Indian tech labor isn't that cheap, a conclusion I draw from my own anecdotal experience. My first job was working for what you may call a "body shop" that was US based with US only employees. The owner started the business after doing sales for an off-shore, India-based "body shop," and he did it bc cost of labor was approaching the cost of labor of US workers, and the US workers would tend to produce higher quality (less defective) work (his words, not mine). No idea what the details were, but he has a thriving business.
Finally, there might be a lot going on right now, but why haven't companies outsourced sooner when there was nothing stopping them (even visas were easier to come by before Trump)? I believe they have contemplated it, and changed their minds for good reason.
It's been interesting so far to see almost every prediction about the future meet unforeseen obstacles.
"We'll have flying cars!" (Need runways, air traffic control, can't let drivers steer their flying car themselves, too dangerous, etc.)
"Work will be outsourced and we will lose our jobs!" (Your comment)
"Artificial intelligence will replace humans and revolutionize everything!" (AI is really hard and nowhere as promising as once believed)
"With gains in productivity, we'll all work 10 hours of week and spend the rest of time writing poetry and traveling!" (We'll just increase total economic activity by making you work the same number of hours)
"The Internet will put an end to ignorance by giving everyone free access to the total sum of knowledge in existence" (Human biases are really entrenched and can't be changed by any amount of information)
I wonder how many other futuristic predictions being made right now will age like milk.
"We'll have flying cars!" (Need runways, air traffic control, can't let drivers steer their flying car themselves, too dangerous, etc.)
"Work will be outsourced and we will lose our jobs!" (Your comment)
"Artificial intelligence will replace humans and revolutionize everything!" (AI is really hard and nowhere as promising as once believed)
"With gains in productivity, we'll all work 10 hours of week and spend the rest of time writing poetry and traveling!" (We'll just increase total economic activity by making you work the same number of hours)
"The Internet will put an end to ignorance by giving everyone free access to the total sum of knowledge in existence" (Human biases are really entrenched and can't be changed by any amount of information)
I wonder how many other futuristic predictions being made right now will age like milk.
Maybe Indian tech labor isn't that cheap. But Silicon Valley tech labor is very expensive (perhaps overpriced!). Maybe the latter is the key factor...
More remote work, and hire outside of SV then. There's a pretty big benefit to keeping the dev teams in time zones with a good amount of overlap. Probably the second biggest factor in our difficulty getting good results from our dev teams in Hyderabad is the 12 hour offset. The single biggest is that if you go to India looking to save money, you're going to be in for some pain. Good talent has a cost no matter where in the world it is.
Wonder how long it takes for the company to move the entire/majority engineering team to India or Eastern Europe to avoid the time difference issues.
Time difference issues aren’t just between engineers. You have to deal with time difference issues between engineering and other areas of the business. (Like product)
There will be a very large lag time between ideation and solid implementation unless you have an extremely verbose product team.
There will be a very large lag time between ideation and solid implementation unless you have an extremely verbose product team.
I would argue there is no such thing as overpriced labor when its the market that sets the price. You will never get a Mercedes for the price of a Honda.
So be skeptical when a politician or mega corp manager utters the words "labor shortage" - there is no such thing.
So be skeptical when a politician or mega corp manager utters the words "labor shortage" - there is no such thing.
There is definitely a shortage of good quality Engineers in SF. That's the key reason why the engineering salary is so high. Also the weird housing laws.
The same engineer who is making 30k in India makes 5 or 6 times the salary when moved to the SF office. Similarly the Engineer who makes 200k+ in SF gets 4 or 5 times less when moved back to India.
Comparing Mercedes to Honda is not the right comparison. There are good and bad engineers in both the US and India. So why pay 150k+ for a Honda in US when you can get the same Honda in India for 30k.
The same engineer who is making 30k in India makes 5 or 6 times the salary when moved to the SF office. Similarly the Engineer who makes 200k+ in SF gets 4 or 5 times less when moved back to India.
Comparing Mercedes to Honda is not the right comparison. There are good and bad engineers in both the US and India. So why pay 150k+ for a Honda in US when you can get the same Honda in India for 30k.
>There is definitely a shortage of good quality Engineers in SF. That's the key reason why the engineering salary is so high.
Do we say there's a caviar shortage because it's expensive? Or say there's a CEO shortage because CEO compensation is high?
Do we say there's a caviar shortage because it's expensive? Or say there's a CEO shortage because CEO compensation is high?
Good CEOs in good companies makes much more than the average CEOs in average companies.
Every company in the USA wants a good CEO. But there are only very limited number of CEOs in the USA that has a good track record of running a successful company. So companies are willing to pay more and more for the top CEOs.
It's the same reason why drivers are paid very low. If there were only 100 drivers in SF who were capable of taking you from point A to point B with a reasonable amount of certainty they would be also be paid in millions.
Everything is supply and demand.
In case of SanFrancisco, the supply of good engineers that are available to be hired used to be limited compared to the demand.
Once you remove the restriction of being able to be physically present in SF, the supply increases much more than the demand. Which results in the reduction of salaries.
Every company in the USA wants a good CEO. But there are only very limited number of CEOs in the USA that has a good track record of running a successful company. So companies are willing to pay more and more for the top CEOs.
It's the same reason why drivers are paid very low. If there were only 100 drivers in SF who were capable of taking you from point A to point B with a reasonable amount of certainty they would be also be paid in millions.
Everything is supply and demand.
In case of SanFrancisco, the supply of good engineers that are available to be hired used to be limited compared to the demand.
Once you remove the restriction of being able to be physically present in SF, the supply increases much more than the demand. Which results in the reduction of salaries.
> In case of SanFrancisco, the supply of good engineers that are available to be hired used to be limited compared to the demand.
If this were the case, salaries would rise until the supply equaled demand.
People have been calling this "shortage of engineers" for decades. A shortage means that demand exceeds supply at a given price (salary). If the market were free to adjust there can't be a long-term shortage. Salaries would quickly rise to the point where supply and demand were equal. If there is really a persistent shortage, why hasn't this happened?
When you talk about goods, long-term shortages can happen when either the supply is artificially constrained or there are some kind of price controls in effect. Which one is causing this shortage? There is no labor cartel in software. Nothing like the AMA keeping the supply of doctors limited. Anyone can learn from online sources and become proficient, and universities graduate truckloads of developers. So there's no artificial labor constraint. There is also no externally-mandated maximum salary for developers. So how can there be a long-term shortage?
If this were the case, salaries would rise until the supply equaled demand.
People have been calling this "shortage of engineers" for decades. A shortage means that demand exceeds supply at a given price (salary). If the market were free to adjust there can't be a long-term shortage. Salaries would quickly rise to the point where supply and demand were equal. If there is really a persistent shortage, why hasn't this happened?
When you talk about goods, long-term shortages can happen when either the supply is artificially constrained or there are some kind of price controls in effect. Which one is causing this shortage? There is no labor cartel in software. Nothing like the AMA keeping the supply of doctors limited. Anyone can learn from online sources and become proficient, and universities graduate truckloads of developers. So there's no artificial labor constraint. There is also no externally-mandated maximum salary for developers. So how can there be a long-term shortage?
Sounds like African automobile tariffs when you put it that way
Let me put it this way.
Is the reason why a 1 bed room house price in SF is 5 times or more higher than that of a similar house in Kiev or Bangalore because it's 5x+ the quality?
No. It's mainly because the supply of housing cant keep up with the demand.
As you can see, the housing price started to drop as more and more companies are going remote.
Is the reason why a 1 bed room house price in SF is 5 times or more higher than that of a similar house in Kiev or Bangalore because it's 5x+ the quality?
No. It's mainly because the supply of housing cant keep up with the demand.
As you can see, the housing price started to drop as more and more companies are going remote.
Sure, though it takes a bit of time for the actors to become conscious they'll get the same value at a lower price.
They've had plenty of time and they were plenty conscious. And here I am getting paid well for writing code without a comp sci degree.
Things have changed a lot though. Covid is pushing us to a remote-heavy world and that's changing how people understand the value of labor. I can imagine, for example, good skill in peripheral areas will get paid more, poor skill in less peripheral areas will be seen as overpriced.
You literally could buy mercedes for price which could have 2 times difference based on location.
So what concept is the word "shortage" supposed to communicate?
"The best people applying for our open positions keep rejecting our salary offers and turnover is high despite regular 2% pay rises."
No, I mean, non-sarcastically, what concept is it intended to communicate?
Is it not possible for a market economy to have a food shortage? Just a price of food at which some people happen to starve to death?
No programmer shortage, but just a price of programmers at which some business opportunities fail to be profitable?
Is it not possible for a market economy to have a food shortage? Just a price of food at which some people happen to starve to death?
No programmer shortage, but just a price of programmers at which some business opportunities fail to be profitable?
A family member works in Inda from 3+ years as management / engineering in an Indian branch of an European company. The upper management thinks a worker is a worker, except in India they are cheaper. Pro-tip: it’s not. You get what you’re paying for. The local standard of professionalism is way from away of the Western one (baseline: Germany). An example: recruiting. Indians, because they live in a very competitive society, will have no shame ok cheating on certification and lie on résumé.
Normal Western approach: take everything at face value. Local background-aware people approach: understand everything as two-three level below what they are pretending. Not that they are not skilled workers, but you have to count for the lying inflation (e.g. 30% of Pakistanis fly pilots got their license thanks to someone else).
Normal Western approach: take everything at face value. Local background-aware people approach: understand everything as two-three level below what they are pretending. Not that they are not skilled workers, but you have to count for the lying inflation (e.g. 30% of Pakistanis fly pilots got their license thanks to someone else).
> Finally, there might be a lot going on right now, but why haven't companies outsourced sooner when there was nothing stopping them (even visas were easier to come by before Trump)? I believe they have contemplated it, and changed their minds for good reason.
Outsourcing to India is not trivial. It's a bit like outsourcing to China, where you _must_ have a deep understanding of the market and the players, so you don't get, well, duped. I have already gone through three different ventures where outsourcing to India didn't go too well, and it was commonly because the layer of management you end up dealing with, will say yes to whatever you ask them to do, regardless of time constraints or engineering talent.
Now, you made an interesting point regarding the current visa situation. See, I am myself a visa holder who came here from Europe, to work for a startup. The whole process was painfully hard. Even renewing the visa is a complex matter. Costs have gone up, and so have hurdles to get even the supposedly "easiest" kind of visa, which I believe must be a J1. My employer sure spent a lot of money on my L1.
It seems that some US engineers believe that their jobs are being "taken" from them by "unqualified", or "substandard", or "underpaid" immigrant engineers, and that getting a work permit in the US is something almost "trivial".
In reality, companies like Uber, Google, Microsoft, etc., will be shifting more jobs abroad, not because it is cheaper, as I think we must agree that the inherent complications of foreign teams may outweigh the potential savings, but because talent is _global_. And if they cannot have the required talent in home, they will surely look elsewhere.
Outsourcing to India is not trivial. It's a bit like outsourcing to China, where you _must_ have a deep understanding of the market and the players, so you don't get, well, duped. I have already gone through three different ventures where outsourcing to India didn't go too well, and it was commonly because the layer of management you end up dealing with, will say yes to whatever you ask them to do, regardless of time constraints or engineering talent.
Now, you made an interesting point regarding the current visa situation. See, I am myself a visa holder who came here from Europe, to work for a startup. The whole process was painfully hard. Even renewing the visa is a complex matter. Costs have gone up, and so have hurdles to get even the supposedly "easiest" kind of visa, which I believe must be a J1. My employer sure spent a lot of money on my L1.
It seems that some US engineers believe that their jobs are being "taken" from them by "unqualified", or "substandard", or "underpaid" immigrant engineers, and that getting a work permit in the US is something almost "trivial".
In reality, companies like Uber, Google, Microsoft, etc., will be shifting more jobs abroad, not because it is cheaper, as I think we must agree that the inherent complications of foreign teams may outweigh the potential savings, but because talent is _global_. And if they cannot have the required talent in home, they will surely look elsewhere.
It seems that some US engineers believe that their jobs are being "taken" from them by "unqualified", or "substandard", or "underpaid" immigrant engineers, and that getting a work permit in the US is something almost "trivial".
You(or others) may be getting mixed up between complaints of legal vs illegal immigration. Illegal immigration does tend to displace American workers for forms of manual labor like on farms, roofing, etc. Legal immigration like H1B tends to be gamed by large corporations to get cheaply paid workers for contacting companies. If talent was truly global, they wouldn't do this.
You(or others) may be getting mixed up between complaints of legal vs illegal immigration. Illegal immigration does tend to displace American workers for forms of manual labor like on farms, roofing, etc. Legal immigration like H1B tends to be gamed by large corporations to get cheaply paid workers for contacting companies. If talent was truly global, they wouldn't do this.
> You(or others) may be getting mixed up between complaints of legal vs illegal immigration. Illegal immigration does tend to displace American workers for forms of manual labor like on farms, roofing, etc.
Let's say that it is true, and that the US job market is larger for blue collar vs. white collar work seekers. Then one must ask why there isn't a ban on seasonal workers yet.
> Legal immigration like H1B tends to be gamed by large corporations to get cheaply paid workers for contacting companies.
That's not true. Large IT outsourcing companies, yes. FAANG, no. H1B salaries are publicly available, so it is easy to prove it.
> If talent was truly global, they wouldn't do this.
Quite literally the opposite. Since talent is global, there simply are good engineers everywhere, and bringing them to the US market is an advantage.
Let's say that it is true, and that the US job market is larger for blue collar vs. white collar work seekers. Then one must ask why there isn't a ban on seasonal workers yet.
> Legal immigration like H1B tends to be gamed by large corporations to get cheaply paid workers for contacting companies.
That's not true. Large IT outsourcing companies, yes. FAANG, no. H1B salaries are publicly available, so it is easy to prove it.
> If talent was truly global, they wouldn't do this.
Quite literally the opposite. Since talent is global, there simply are good engineers everywhere, and bringing them to the US market is an advantage.
That depends. I work with great people in India, but they don't understand the US customers like I do, even though some have been with the company longer (this generalization is false in some cases, but overall it is true enough). As a result I can often make a good decision about some unclear requirement without asking for help, where they need to ask. Of course we are also trying to break into the India market and there it is the reverse, they understand the customer in India better than me.
We are now outsourcing development to Mexico, not only is it cheaper, but they are in similar timezones so if there is a question they can ask directly not send an email that they won't get a response to until the next day.
We are now outsourcing development to Mexico, not only is it cheaper, but they are in similar timezones so if there is a question they can ask directly not send an email that they won't get a response to until the next day.
It's hard to ignore the siren song as a business person of comparing your 300k a year engineers to a senior engineer that costs $80k in India (regardless of the potential hidden costs of cultural and time zone differences).
This gap should probably narrow as more remote work becomes normal, and more people move out of the Valley and can actually live decently on 150k, rather than 300k.
This gap should probably narrow as more remote work becomes normal, and more people move out of the Valley and can actually live decently on 150k, rather than 300k.
This is well-trodden ground as far as discussion around here goes. The common points pro and con always come up: is the quality the same (some say yes, some say no), is co-location or time-zone location important (same parenthetical), what $ amount is ethical to pay, whom is it more ethical to pay (are you a nationalist or a global citizen, etc), what's sustainable, many more etc's.
I've decided that's it's a personal decision to a company. Many find benefits in having some teams in India or Asia, some don't so they don't. We should really divorce politics from this discussion. I'm ok with company A saying they like Indian devs and company B saying they enjoy the benefits of keeping it in their geographical area. I've seen outsourcing backfire. I've seen it succeed. I've seen team leads emerge in India and direct an entire product from 10,000 miles away. I've also seen dead weight that I had to go out of my way to get productivity from. You see it all and you'll get it all, so why the fuss?
I've decided that's it's a personal decision to a company. Many find benefits in having some teams in India or Asia, some don't so they don't. We should really divorce politics from this discussion. I'm ok with company A saying they like Indian devs and company B saying they enjoy the benefits of keeping it in their geographical area. I've seen outsourcing backfire. I've seen it succeed. I've seen team leads emerge in India and direct an entire product from 10,000 miles away. I've also seen dead weight that I had to go out of my way to get productivity from. You see it all and you'll get it all, so why the fuss?
> You see it all and you'll get it all, so why the fuss?
Because people are afraid that they won't be able to command 350K a year salaries anymore. The fear is that the "good old days" of SV salaries are over is being materialized.
Imo its overdue, but I also am perfectly happy making an average salary in a HCOL area, with aspirations to move to a low or middle COL area.
Because people are afraid that they won't be able to command 350K a year salaries anymore. The fear is that the "good old days" of SV salaries are over is being materialized.
Imo its overdue, but I also am perfectly happy making an average salary in a HCOL area, with aspirations to move to a low or middle COL area.
Sv is high cost of living because the people want it to be. It is well known in ecconmics how to make most of their costs lower, but they have spent years fighting those things. They get the good and bad side of high cost of living. (yimby says they want to change, but I don't know if they really want it, or just want a minor change, or even yes in the backyard across town)
I live in a low cost of living area and get the good and bad of my choices.
I live in a low cost of living area and get the good and bad of my choices.
> We should really divorce politics from this discussion.
that's a common technical people pitfall. politics permeates society, and ignoring it is only to your own detriment exposing you form exploitation of those whom play the political game, of which you most assuredly participate in, whether you want an active role in it or not.
that's a common technical people pitfall. politics permeates society, and ignoring it is only to your own detriment exposing you form exploitation of those whom play the political game, of which you most assuredly participate in, whether you want an active role in it or not.
Not only does it permeate, but this particular issue touches on a much larger, and more timely discussion: the extent to which companies should be loyal to a nation, and its citizens.
In one view, the one I had for a long time, companies are free agents. They can set up where they want, come and go as they please, hire and fire at will. They add value by creating jobs and profit and society should be thankful for that.
A different view, one I hear a lot in the more intellectual conservative circles (Brexit and some Trump supporters), is that companies have a duty to their people, and society at large. They should train people (through apprenticeship, rather than strip-mining universities / the local market), try to promote stability, avoid huge disruptive layoffs, etc.
I used to think the first but have come around to the second a bit.
In one view, the one I had for a long time, companies are free agents. They can set up where they want, come and go as they please, hire and fire at will. They add value by creating jobs and profit and society should be thankful for that.
A different view, one I hear a lot in the more intellectual conservative circles (Brexit and some Trump supporters), is that companies have a duty to their people, and society at large. They should train people (through apprenticeship, rather than strip-mining universities / the local market), try to promote stability, avoid huge disruptive layoffs, etc.
I used to think the first but have come around to the second a bit.
There's a difference between "let's try to figure out the best way to do something" and "let's sell the solution we've settled on". That's not an argument for avoiding politics, but there's nothing wrong with veering in the other direction either.
once you figure out the best way, you _still_ have to sell it to stakeholders which are each optimizing for different things, some of which you probably don't even known, and that's when the politics kicks in.
> politics permeates society
No, it's a pitfall people fall into when they read politics into any topic.
No, it's a pitfall people fall into when they read politics into any topic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics
Politics permeates society, and by design.
Also this thread is about employment and moving jobs across countries, which is an extremely politically changed topic.
Politics permeates society, and by design.
Also this thread is about employment and moving jobs across countries, which is an extremely politically changed topic.
the topic is optimizing an arbitrary metric among a group of people with diverging goals and objectives many of which hidden[1] or with far reaching consequences that are impossible to know fully.
that quite literally requires reaching compromises in place of whatever optimal mathematical solution may exists.
[1] including people that might want a certain solution to be implemented _and_ fail. they do exist, especially in older groups where the power structure is fragmented and the dynamic dysfunctional.
that quite literally requires reaching compromises in place of whatever optimal mathematical solution may exists.
[1] including people that might want a certain solution to be implemented _and_ fail. they do exist, especially in older groups where the power structure is fragmented and the dynamic dysfunctional.
> We should really divorce politics from this discussion
These decisions have externalities both positive and negative. "Divorcing politics" means ignoring those externalities. It is unlikely to happen.
These decisions have externalities both positive and negative. "Divorcing politics" means ignoring those externalities. It is unlikely to happen.
> We should really divorce politics from this discussion.
I have come to realize that the only people who ever say this are people with no skin in the game, i.e., who aren't in the gunsights. I suspect (actually, know) you'd feel differently if you were training your own replacements just prior to your unemployment.
I have come to realize that the only people who ever say this are people with no skin in the game, i.e., who aren't in the gunsights. I suspect (actually, know) you'd feel differently if you were training your own replacements just prior to your unemployment.
The personal is very much political, pokémon.
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Paying $80k a year in India would get you top level talent.
They’d pay less than that.
Uber is preparing for a death spiral as their financial backing runs out and they need to shrink to the profitable markets.
They’d pay less than that.
Uber is preparing for a death spiral as their financial backing runs out and they need to shrink to the profitable markets.
The numbers $300K and $80K are roughly accurate. Yes, you can get engineers in India for $5K or even less, but you don't want them working on your product. Senior, architect-level talented engineers may well cost $80K. And yes, if you want to hire the same capability engineer in Silicon Valley, they will likely cost $300K.
Nitpicking a bit, it's not a death spiral if they don't die in the end.
Contemplated changing that wording before posting but decided that it’s a bit of a ship of Theseus thought exercise.
If Uber radically shifts its focus to focus solely on smaller profitable markets and the people working there are swapped out then has the company ultimately failed/died and had to be reborn?
It may not be a General Magic style death but it seemed reasonable to me that at least philosophically it is a death spiral nonetheless.
If Uber radically shifts its focus to focus solely on smaller profitable markets and the people working there are swapped out then has the company ultimately failed/died and had to be reborn?
It may not be a General Magic style death but it seemed reasonable to me that at least philosophically it is a death spiral nonetheless.
> Uber is preparing for a death spiral as their financial backing runs out and they need to shrink to the profitable markets.
Many of their top markets have ruled their drivers are employees (or requiring similar compensation/benefits), except Brazil. I'm unsure if they can remain anywhere near their current size (versus the headcount of a traditional livery service) based on that regulatory environment, even with McKinsey style transformations to their business (ie offshoring).
> "But one detail in particular caught my eye. About 24 percent of Uber’s bookings—all the money that customers pay through the app and in cash, including driver earnings—occur in just five cities: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and São Paulo." [1]
London: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/19/uber-lose... ("Uber loses appeal over driver employment rights")
France: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-court/top-french-cou... ("Top French court deals blow to Uber by giving driver 'employee' status")
California: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/california-regulator-uber-lyf... ("Uber, Lyft drivers are employees according to California regulator")
New Jersey: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/nyregion/uber-new-jersey-... ("New Jersey has demanded that Uber pay $649 million for years of unpaid employment taxes for its drivers, arguing that the ride-hailing company has misclassified the workers as independent contractors and not as employees.")
New York: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/nyregion/uber-drivers-pay... ("New York City regulators are moving toward significantly raising wages for drivers for Uber and other ride-hailing apps.")
[1] https://slate.com/business/2019/04/uber-ipo-nyc-london-risks...
Many of their top markets have ruled their drivers are employees (or requiring similar compensation/benefits), except Brazil. I'm unsure if they can remain anywhere near their current size (versus the headcount of a traditional livery service) based on that regulatory environment, even with McKinsey style transformations to their business (ie offshoring).
> "But one detail in particular caught my eye. About 24 percent of Uber’s bookings—all the money that customers pay through the app and in cash, including driver earnings—occur in just five cities: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and São Paulo." [1]
London: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/19/uber-lose... ("Uber loses appeal over driver employment rights")
France: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-court/top-french-cou... ("Top French court deals blow to Uber by giving driver 'employee' status")
California: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/california-regulator-uber-lyf... ("Uber, Lyft drivers are employees according to California regulator")
New Jersey: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/nyregion/uber-new-jersey-... ("New Jersey has demanded that Uber pay $649 million for years of unpaid employment taxes for its drivers, arguing that the ride-hailing company has misclassified the workers as independent contractors and not as employees.")
New York: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/nyregion/uber-drivers-pay... ("New York City regulators are moving toward significantly raising wages for drivers for Uber and other ride-hailing apps.")
[1] https://slate.com/business/2019/04/uber-ipo-nyc-london-risks...
Unintended side effect of this is to prevent competitive entry. No other TNC will be able to achieve enough density from day 1 to run at the wage floor without huge amounts of VC.
That alone should make people suspicious of this legislation. In the long run, this is really, really good for Uber/Lyft.
That alone should make people suspicious of this legislation. In the long run, this is really, really good for Uber/Lyft.
Yes, its basically a potential way for uber and lyft to lock themselves in as the only 2 players in the US market.
I think the cost of an engineer is way less than 80K in India. Here in the Netherlands a senior SE would be $80K. I see no reason to go to India instead of western Europe then.
Well, you're in for a shock. Fact is Indian employees (working in the main cities in tech companies) are paid more than European employees (besides London and Switzerland). Companies should be outsourcing to Europe, not to India.
I've seen that consistently across companies in the past decade. Europe salaries have been stagnating while India and China can be growing 10% a year. The gap, assuming there was one 20 years ago, didn't last long.
I've seen that consistently across companies in the past decade. Europe salaries have been stagnating while India and China can be growing 10% a year. The gap, assuming there was one 20 years ago, didn't last long.
I don't think the kind of engineers that command 300k in valley are to be had in Amsterdam for 80k. In India that's possible.
Indians who are on that level are not going to be in India, but they are already in SV or Europe.
Many have returned back home, or got to that level locally and don't want to leave.
The Indians I've worked with who returned say they did it because life was easier. Sure they make less money on India, but in India servants come every day to cook and clean (for about 60 cents a day). As one guy said "I know how to cook, but I didn't realize I'd be cooking every meal"
The Indians I've worked with who returned say they did it because life was easier. Sure they make less money on India, but in India servants come every day to cook and clean (for about 60 cents a day). As one guy said "I know how to cook, but I didn't realize I'd be cooking every meal"
not true. it's a huge country and there are so many reasons why people decide not to emigrate particularly with the visa hassles worldwide and evolving startup scene in India.
Does 300k buy talent and experience, or 60 hour weeks and people with no outside interests?
The best engineers I've ever worked with were definetly not making that sort of money, mostly because they were the sort of people that didn't like going to interviews and were more interested in tinkering with their side projects and hobbies than competative careers.
The best engineers I've ever worked with were definetly not making that sort of money, mostly because they were the sort of people that didn't like going to interviews and were more interested in tinkering with their side projects and hobbies than competative careers.
I very specifically avoided any qualitative judgement on skill in my comment. "Kind" includes all the qualities SV firms are after. Whether they are the best at what they do or not isn't the point.
I find that hard to believe, from the engineers I have met I find it very difficult to imagine software built in India working.
I don't think it is "way less". 80K USD converts to 5,979K INR which is about the ballpark estimate some of the senior engineers I know make in India (one of them is working for the Western European company btw).
One of the reasons to move to India would be the availability of talent even if it is at comparable cost. Companies like to scale and lack of talent is a risk they want to mitigate.
One of the reasons to move to India would be the availability of talent even if it is at comparable cost. Companies like to scale and lack of talent is a risk they want to mitigate.
In my experience working with outsourcing agencies - "talent available" in India is filling headcount numbers. Good developers ask for similar wages as EU based ones and are equally hard to find, probably even harder because the market is filled with scammers (eg. on several occasions I would interview a competent guy and then the work would clearly get delegated to someone inexperienced)
Sure, scammers are abound and the bad to good ratio is pretty high but due to the population size, the number of good developers is high as well.
My impression from talking with a few people from India working in UK and working with Indian outsourcing agencies/contractors is that India routinely gets cost cutting projects based on price/employee - this creates "coder farms" which breed code farm quality developers + the education system on the whole is inferior (from what I understand India took diploma mills to the next level). So the best talent emigrates because even with the remote option, the increase in life standard and opportunities from emigrating are worth it, and low skill/almost bot level development for rent culture reinforces itself.
> the bad to good ratio is pretty high but due to the population size
This is not how ratios work.
This is not how ratios work.
Can you elaborate why that statement is incorrect?
If B/G is high, G/B is low. But if P is a very high number G/B * P must be a decently high number as well.
If B/G is high, G/B is low. But if P is a very high number G/B * P must be a decently high number as well.
When you pay per hour per head by designation, that is what businesses optimize for - inflation.
I have worked in one, 80% of the work is in making the managers both India & American look good to upper management.
India is also a huge market for uber.
I have worked in one, 80% of the work is in making the managers both India & American look good to upper management.
India is also a huge market for uber.
Yes but Netherlands employees won't do what they're told and are basically unfireable. Not quite as bad as Belgium but not far off.
What do you mean with won't do what they're told ?
Disclaimer : am Dutch.
Disclaimer : am Dutch.
Likely the OP means they will not submissively do exclusively what they are told; in a no questions asked, military-style command and control sort of way. More specifically, will answer to ridiculous demands of “we need this by tomorrow.”
But tomorrow is my 'dad day' !
papadag : https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/dutch-dads-and-t...
papadag : https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/dutch-dads-and-t...
They have _rights_ and everything.
An engineer at 80K in Europe would be working on their own. Whereas in India they could be running a team, so much greater leverage.
At least in Germany, $80k salary would mean costs of nearly $100k for the employer because of additional social security payments required. So it really isn't a fair comparison.
Would that translate into a "40k in your pocket" salary? I have heard Germans mention 50% tax before, but no idea how it is implemented.
For a single without kids, 50%, meaning 40k in your pocket, is a good rule of thumb, yes.
So an 80k salary in Germany involves the employee paying 50% and the company paying another 20k on top of that?
You can check the exact amounts with this online calculator: https://www.brutto-netto-rechner.info/gehalt/gehaltsrechner-...
Set the "Steuerklasse" to 1 for singles, 3 for married employees.
Set the "Steuerklasse" to 1 for singles, 3 for married employees.
Yes. But remember that this includes health insurance, basic retirement, unemployment benefits and so on.
[deleted]
> $80k salary would mean costs of nearly $100k for the employer
Closer to 150..
Closer to 150..
No, sorry, an $80k salary would cost $94k for the employer in Germany.
The reason is that instead of 300k (or 80k) you're paying less than 80k.
Yes, the salaries I've seen bandied about for SV developers are absurd.
That a new grad in SV can out-earn a seasoned dev located elsewhere was never sustainable.
People will point out that the rent is absurdly high too, and maybe it is, but I'd also wager that these employees are renting from colleagues higher up who approve these salaries because they know they'll get a large cut.
That a new grad in SV can out-earn a seasoned dev located elsewhere was never sustainable.
People will point out that the rent is absurdly high too, and maybe it is, but I'd also wager that these employees are renting from colleagues higher up who approve these salaries because they know they'll get a large cut.
Maybe the new grads with those legendary salaries are paid closer to their true value, while the seasoned devs are not?
You can live decently in the valley on a lot less than 300k. Speaking from experience, even 90k is perfectly comfortable.
Based on the salaries of my friends in SF, $150k is a very reasonable salary that allows a fantastic lifestyle.
Based on the salaries of my friends in SF, $150k is a very reasonable salary that allows a fantastic lifestyle.
This is kind of a contrarian viewpoint but one I happen to agree with. As a single person, you can live a great life on $100K.
No, maybe you aren't going to $100/plate restaurants every night or living in a $5000/month luxury studio, but there are plenty of great apartments in Oakland (where I live) for $1500-2000/month.
What's actually started to become jarring is the difference between SF proper and the rest of the region. SF rents seem to be almost 2x comparable places in the East Bay, plus the general price level is higher from Prop C and all the other insane junk the electorate wants. 2x the cost and the city is rapidly becoming a tent camp, I'm happy to live a little farther out and commute to work 1-2x/week when I'm not WFH.
No, maybe you aren't going to $100/plate restaurants every night or living in a $5000/month luxury studio, but there are plenty of great apartments in Oakland (where I live) for $1500-2000/month.
What's actually started to become jarring is the difference between SF proper and the rest of the region. SF rents seem to be almost 2x comparable places in the East Bay, plus the general price level is higher from Prop C and all the other insane junk the electorate wants. 2x the cost and the city is rapidly becoming a tent camp, I'm happy to live a little farther out and commute to work 1-2x/week when I'm not WFH.
With mortgage payments in the $5k range, I highly doubt your assessment. Maybe your definition of comfortable is different than mine, or you don’t have children.
Just wondering why they don't want to outsource to europe. Here in Germany you will get good engineers for $80k. Or east europe is even cheaper + better cultural fit.
Employees in countries like India are more disposable.
In theory if you mean by eastern europe the part that is in EU even that one has some decent labor laws to prevent companies like Uber from firing at will.
I think even Ukraine or Belarus do.
I think even Ukraine or Belarus do.
There is always one 'business KPI' being measured whether engineers like it or not - your pay. I know it's passe to poo poo KPIs and measuring value delivered to the business. If you're not in a position to justify the investment to stakeholders, relative to other options with lower costs, you're probably going to lose that argument.
Why should those engineers be paid $150k if they're generating more than $300k of value? For that matter, why should an Indian engineer be paid $80k if they're generating $300k of value minus whatever hidden costs you want to assign (surely not $220k)?
People are paid based on how much a similarly skilled worker is willing to work for, not based on how much value they generate for a company.
They are paid between their value and what they are willing to work for. Where exactly in between depends on supply and demand. When demand is high, competition will drive the salary close to the value generated. When demand is low, cost cutting and unemployment will drive the salary towards the minimum price.
They are paid based on how much other companies are willing to pay the same worker.
Why should an engineer be paid that value they produce when they assume none of the risk? If the company goes bankrupt, will the engineer be willing to bail the company out?
The engineer is paid less than the value they produce because they don't assume any of the risk. If the product they produce turns out to be worthless or break, they don't have to pay their salary back.
The engineer is paid less than the value they produce because they don't assume any of the risk. If the product they produce turns out to be worthless or break, they don't have to pay their salary back.
> Why should an engineer be paid that value they produce when they assume none of the risk?
Engineers are never fired? Not even when the company shuts down?
> If the company goes bankrupt, will the engineer be willing to bail the company out?
Sometimes yes, with their (and mine) taxes.
Engineers are never fired? Not even when the company shuts down?
> If the company goes bankrupt, will the engineer be willing to bail the company out?
Sometimes yes, with their (and mine) taxes.
> Engineers are never fired? Not even when the company shuts down?
Engineers never lose assets because their work doesn't produce value, or destroys value. Engineers aren't liable for the success of their work. Engineers don't have to return their salary if they don't produce value.
> Sometimes yes, with their (and mine) taxes.
This is an argument for everyone capturing the value produced by companies, not the employee. If you want to argue for harder taxation of corporations, or fewer business incentives, then sure. But this is unrelated to the relationship between the engineer and the company.
Engineers never lose assets because their work doesn't produce value, or destroys value. Engineers aren't liable for the success of their work. Engineers don't have to return their salary if they don't produce value.
> Sometimes yes, with their (and mine) taxes.
This is an argument for everyone capturing the value produced by companies, not the employee. If you want to argue for harder taxation of corporations, or fewer business incentives, then sure. But this is unrelated to the relationship between the engineer and the company.
The value generated is an interesting number when the company is hemorrhaging money...
How many engineers are able to directly convert their work into a revenue number? It's not like a Sales job where there are ever increasing targets and money coming in is recorded meticulously.
Would you pay $300 for an item costing $150 if you use the item to make something more than $300 of value?
Didn't think so.
Didn't think so.
Why should the internet cost orders of magnitude less than the value it generates?
Nobody is paid exactly what they're worth, because what would be the point? The company can break even like that by not hiring anybody.
> This gap should probably narrow as more remote work becomes normal, and more people move out of the Valley and can actually live decently on 150k, rather than 300k.
The gap is a function of Moore's Law. If Moore's Law slows down, the gap will narrow. If not, then not.
The gap is a function of Moore's Law. If Moore's Law slows down, the gap will narrow. If not, then not.
[deleted]
$80K will get you good engineers in Europe. Not saying they would be better or worse, but the cost of living is higher and the culture is closer.
With 80k you could get a team of senior engineers in India.
Or ”senior engineers”, but anyway.
Or ”senior engineers”, but anyway.
Regardless of how “senior” they are, you get what you pay for.
I recently visited Uber's engineering blog (https://eng.uber.com/) and I can't help but it seems they have engineers goofing around with new technology completely useless for their core business ("Look, we now also use meta learning like all the hip kids!")
A company that is swamped with ad revenue money may can afford this but for the rest (especially when they are VC backed) there will come the time when they have to ask themselves if they really need 4000 engineers to maintain the service that brings in the money (= a few apps and a cloud based backend)
A company that is swamped with ad revenue money may can afford this but for the rest (especially when they are VC backed) there will come the time when they have to ask themselves if they really need 4000 engineers to maintain the service that brings in the money (= a few apps and a cloud based backend)
I worked at "mega bank" in London. They did this.
For two years.
And moved all the jobs back again.
The time-zones didn't work and communication was poor. Ultimately it cost more money than, say, off-shoring to an East European country (which they did instead).
For two years.
And moved all the jobs back again.
The time-zones didn't work and communication was poor. Ultimately it cost more money than, say, off-shoring to an East European country (which they did instead).
East European country => Poland, Ukraine or which country?
Hungary.
The whole outsourcing to India was a disaster. Made additionally worse by Java developers trying to write C++ (pre-11 too), so memory leaks everywhere. Fun times :(
The whole outsourcing to India was a disaster. Made additionally worse by Java developers trying to write C++ (pre-11 too), so memory leaks everywhere. Fun times :(
How is anyone surprised, Uber the taxi app is an international service whether its Vietnam or India is only maintenance/top-up work since the actual core product is up & running since the past decade.
20 cents on the dollar is what they have on their minds. But when you add in the right layer of management, factor in productivity gaps due to time zone differences and lack of business context, etc. You are actually paying 80 cents on a dollar. Tech executives know this but they are unable to persuade their business counterparts.
My feeling is that best Indian software engineers are in the US (or even Europe) already. I have great Indian and Pakistani colleagues at my company, but we had very mixed results with outsourcing.
I believe this is true also, but is changing quickly. Anecdotally I know of some pretty good engineers that are moving back home because the quality of life difference (having a cook, housekeeper, driver), and because salaries have gotten a lot better than say 5 or 10 years ago.
I'm not so sure, with restrictions in immigration, and developing Indian tech scene, this might not be as true as it was 10 years ago.
Like others have mentioned, the current political atmosphere is one that seems to have embraced xenophobia, thus making it harder for talent to emigrate. If you can't move the talent to the work, you can move the work to the talent. In that sense the internet is a great equalizer.
This reminds me of a quote from my international econ class in college: "You can take our tomatoes, or our workers. It's up to you to pick which you want" - Mexico to US
I've also seen very mixed results with outsourcing, but I don't know if I would blame Indian (or Polish, or Ukrainian or whatever) engineers. I think often it's just how the "mothership" works with the outsourced entity. If the process is to ship a spreadsheet of specifications and expect to get back a great product in 3 weeks, it's not ideal.
You need to be very controlling with outsourcing. You cannot just hire resumes, you need to carefully interview to ensure that they can do what is claimed and be hands on to watch the work.
There are great people in India, but you have work to find them.
There are great people in India, but you have work to find them.
Firm with a business plan premised on devaluing and trying to eliminate labor continues to devalue labor, film at 11.
Only problem is that the whole software / tech company facade is what held the whole bubble going. You can't keep insane valuations when you're just a taxi company hiring cheap engineers to develop an app.
There has been a growing bubble of using software and apps and pretending to "disrupt" traditional real world markets that has been there for years. I suspect a big part of that bubble was dunning-kroger effect of software engineer's arrogance, investors extravagance, and willingness to burn cash fueled by prior experience with actual software companies which spilled over to optimism about being able to do the same in traditional markets.
AirBnB, Uber, Lyft, Grubhub, other food delivery apps, WeWork, Tesla. They are all examples of what happens when you judge a traditional business from the rose tinted glasses of software companies, almost ignoring the efficient market hypothesis about these traditional businesses long before these "disruptors" came along, while exaggerating the value the software part really provides.
There has been a growing bubble of using software and apps and pretending to "disrupt" traditional real world markets that has been there for years. I suspect a big part of that bubble was dunning-kroger effect of software engineer's arrogance, investors extravagance, and willingness to burn cash fueled by prior experience with actual software companies which spilled over to optimism about being able to do the same in traditional markets.
AirBnB, Uber, Lyft, Grubhub, other food delivery apps, WeWork, Tesla. They are all examples of what happens when you judge a traditional business from the rose tinted glasses of software companies, almost ignoring the efficient market hypothesis about these traditional businesses long before these "disruptors" came along, while exaggerating the value the software part really provides.
The story doesn't mention it, but I wonder if this has been accelerated by the increasing hostility the administration has towards H-1B visas. To the extent that companies can no longer access the labor pool of the other ~96% of the world's population, it makes sense that they would set up production where they have access to that labor.
Everybody's talking about the cost side of this and not the benefit: customer intimacy. India is a huge market for many tech companies, and having more on-the-ground presence means they'll innovate in ways more appropriate to the Indian market.
And compete with the homegrown Ola? Severly doubt it.
John Lewis (large UK retailer) just announced the same yesterday: https://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/media/press/y2020/jlp...
I wonder are we going through a similar phase that happened mid-2000s when outsourcing became very much the preferred delivery model. Then user-centered design and agile pulled it back onshore.
I wonder are we going through a similar phase that happened mid-2000s when outsourcing became very much the preferred delivery model. Then user-centered design and agile pulled it back onshore.
As a programmer and not a finance guy, I can't understand the cost savings.
I'm earning roughly 4k USD per month and our developers in India earn 1k USD per month.
The output of the entire 12-people team there including managers etc is the same as output of 1-2 people with a 4k USD salary here, but with a much lower quality and maintainability.
And that's not counting the hours spent negotiating fixes or giving detailed instructions.
I'm earning roughly 4k USD per month and our developers in India earn 1k USD per month.
The output of the entire 12-people team there including managers etc is the same as output of 1-2 people with a 4k USD salary here, but with a much lower quality and maintainability.
And that's not counting the hours spent negotiating fixes or giving detailed instructions.
I think it's not a dichotomy if it's good or bad, when you think from which stakeholder perspective you are using, the answer is diametrically opposite:
"Outsourcing devs to India" - this may be an oversimplification
- Shareholders: Saving money, more money to Shareholders pocket hopefully
- Management: Decreasing costs, better path to achieve xyz goals; therefore easier to meet bonus targets
- Dev team: Increasing uncertainty about job security, quality of product losing control
- PM, UI/UX, designers, related fields: Increasing uncertainty about job security, more overhead to develop products and features; potentially slower feature release
- Other teams in the company: increasing more work to deal with teams in different parts of the world (but that's already happening with Uber with teams across the world)
- India's devs: more high quality and better paying jobs
- India's devs market: slight increase in competition of quality devs
- Consumers and User: minimal disruption, they don't care
I think the Outsourcing can be done because not all dev work is weighted equally across the board. Are you going to use a $300K dev to correct a spelling mistake in an app or use that dev to further the AI development of autonomous driving system? I cannot answer why this is not a good approach but it sounds reasonable.
Now, there are a lot of other consequences of outsourcing the work if you proceed to second order thinking. Having Uber to vouch and invest in India will increase its prestige in software development market further; however, for the US side, that only adds more pain to the idea that big corporations are self interested only and undermines the US labor market.
"Outsourcing devs to India" - this may be an oversimplification
- Shareholders: Saving money, more money to Shareholders pocket hopefully
- Management: Decreasing costs, better path to achieve xyz goals; therefore easier to meet bonus targets
- Dev team: Increasing uncertainty about job security, quality of product losing control
- PM, UI/UX, designers, related fields: Increasing uncertainty about job security, more overhead to develop products and features; potentially slower feature release
- Other teams in the company: increasing more work to deal with teams in different parts of the world (but that's already happening with Uber with teams across the world)
- India's devs: more high quality and better paying jobs
- India's devs market: slight increase in competition of quality devs
- Consumers and User: minimal disruption, they don't care
I think the Outsourcing can be done because not all dev work is weighted equally across the board. Are you going to use a $300K dev to correct a spelling mistake in an app or use that dev to further the AI development of autonomous driving system? I cannot answer why this is not a good approach but it sounds reasonable.
Now, there are a lot of other consequences of outsourcing the work if you proceed to second order thinking. Having Uber to vouch and invest in India will increase its prestige in software development market further; however, for the US side, that only adds more pain to the idea that big corporations are self interested only and undermines the US labor market.
I'd be wary about the Consumers and Users "not caring". Depending on the size of the company, there's definitely a lot of negative sentiment to seeing "jobs" sent overseas, regardless of where the positions actually are
When things do go wrong, there's a bit of an attitude of "of course it broke, they sent all the jobs overseas!"
When things do go wrong, there's a bit of an attitude of "of course it broke, they sent all the jobs overseas!"
India is also a huge market, also one with huge growth potential.
People living in advanced economies growing at 2% do not seem to realise that the growth that they need for their survival actually come from developing countries growing at 6-7% actually adding assets, or store of value.
People living in advanced economies growing at 2% do not seem to realise that the growth that they need for their survival actually come from developing countries growing at 6-7% actually adding assets, or store of value.
I used to think this was a bad thing, but these days I'm not so sure. Assuming you can get the same (or similar) talent in India instead of the US, doesn't it make sense to do your development in a place where your money goes farther?
The capitalist in me sees this as a win: more value for shareholders, and a big life improvement for Indians.
Can someone explain to me why it's a bad thing? I understand it might be bad for current and future US-based Uber employees, but aside from that, what's the downside? The way I see it, this helps more people overall (and I don't really care about which national flag you identify with).
The capitalist in me sees this as a win: more value for shareholders, and a big life improvement for Indians.
Can someone explain to me why it's a bad thing? I understand it might be bad for current and future US-based Uber employees, but aside from that, what's the downside? The way I see it, this helps more people overall (and I don't really care about which national flag you identify with).
The downside for individuals is that a lot of people who frequent this site end up with significantly lower salaries than before (from your downvotes, they don't like that idea). The downside for companies is that you tend to get an overall lower quality product with a lot more managerial overhead required due to the nature of remote/cross-cultural/cross-language development. The downside for America is that the trend of stagnant median wages continues since you're pulling the rug out from under one of the few domestic industries that's actually still lucrative for a significant portion of the workers in it.
I doubt offshoring dev work will have a significant effect on US median wage which is around $40K/yr. Devs who move from making $200K to $150K or even $100K to $80K won’t move the needle on median wage.
"Assuming you can get the same (or similar) talent in India instead of the US"
I am not aware of anyone who has succeeded at this in practice. Do you know anyone?
I am not aware of anyone who has succeeded at this in practice. Do you know anyone?
I've had mixed results.
Romania has been great.
Pakistan was /terrible/...
India has been a mixed bag. Firms tend to be terrible. Individuals tend to be good to great. The great devs tend to move here as soon as they're able.
Romania has been great.
Pakistan was /terrible/...
India has been a mixed bag. Firms tend to be terrible. Individuals tend to be good to great. The great devs tend to move here as soon as they're able.
Yeah, that's why the idea that H1Bs need to be restricted will help with US employment is remarkably stupid.
There are a few companies that abuse (abused?) the H1B program but that was always a small but visible percentage, but more importantly, actions taken under the Obama administration had drastically reduced the abuse.
The much greater percentage are employees who studied in the US, or worked with companies in India and then had them transfer to the US. Eliminating the H1B visa simply means that they will now do the same work from India or Canada instead, further reducing the number of jobs in the US.
There are a few companies that abuse (abused?) the H1B program but that was always a small but visible percentage, but more importantly, actions taken under the Obama administration had drastically reduced the abuse.
The much greater percentage are employees who studied in the US, or worked with companies in India and then had them transfer to the US. Eliminating the H1B visa simply means that they will now do the same work from India or Canada instead, further reducing the number of jobs in the US.
This is pretty much what I've seen. If you invest time and money in opening a branch office and interviewing full-time staff, you'll find sharp and dedicated people like you would here. But you cannot shortcut this process by paying a no-name body shop, because you will get "deliverables" that obviously weren't tested at all because they don't compile.
So many companies have R&D offices in India, Intel, Qualcomm, AMD, Samsung etc. If you are asking move the entire company over here, that won't make sense since you need to hire brass for representation. It's the middle layer that is costly & can be moved off.
We just hired an engineer in India who so far seems really promising. As a start-up sized organization I think you can do really well if you look in the right places. If I had to build a team of 100 people in a limited amount of time I would probably be less confident.
I don't know, that's why I'm asking. I have worked at a startup that used a firm in Ukraine which actually did really great work, however. It was perhaps more expensive than India, but still much cheaper than the US.
Much cheaper than Silicon Valley you mean.
Almost every major tech company has massive campuses in India.
So, almost every one of them?
These don't replace their US operations, but add to them and grow them in ways they couldnt in the US itself.
So, almost every one of them?
These don't replace their US operations, but add to them and grow them in ways they couldnt in the US itself.
Correct me if I'm wrong that interview process for US and India is same?
In the general sense, I think you’re right that part of it is US employees getting unhappy that jobs are moving elsewhere because they’re cheaper. From a moral standpoint there’s not much wrong about giving people in other countries a better life. (There are probably some arguments about supporting the country that gave you the necessary infrastructure to succeed in the first place?)
That said, I think the debates mostly come from the amount of times this has gone very poorly in the past. CEOs who come in to cut costs are often CEOs who aim to replace their top of the line US employees with not top of the line Indian employees but bulk middling/bad Indian employees. And for the US employees who remain this makes working with their code awful and slowly drains the company into a mess that people then have to deal with when inevitably things get bad enough to bring everyone back on shore.
When I’ve worked at companies who pay the money for good Indian employees, they’ve been reasonable to great to work with. But that’s rarely been how offshoring has worked out in my experience.
That said, I think the debates mostly come from the amount of times this has gone very poorly in the past. CEOs who come in to cut costs are often CEOs who aim to replace their top of the line US employees with not top of the line Indian employees but bulk middling/bad Indian employees. And for the US employees who remain this makes working with their code awful and slowly drains the company into a mess that people then have to deal with when inevitably things get bad enough to bring everyone back on shore.
When I’ve worked at companies who pay the money for good Indian employees, they’ve been reasonable to great to work with. But that’s rarely been how offshoring has worked out in my experience.
> Assuming you can get the same (or similar) talent in India instead of the US
In my experience, this assumption is not true and is the main downside.
The other is time zones and remote work in general being difficult, but I’m generally in favor of remote work and think as more people do it it will become more efficient.
The other is time zones and remote work in general being difficult, but I’m generally in favor of remote work and think as more people do it it will become more efficient.
Oh, it's not a bad thing.
But competition works the other way, too.
Which developers are sitting around making less than a third of what other developers with the same skillset are making? The best ones?
But competition works the other way, too.
Which developers are sitting around making less than a third of what other developers with the same skillset are making? The best ones?
I am sorry that you have been subject to the typical downvote-squad that's downvoting everything they don't agree with, even if your post was perfectly fine. I upvoted it.
> Can someone explain to me why it's a bad thing?
I am just a layman, but how I see it is simple. If you move everything in a branch of business to another country, you will loose the possibility to do that branch in case of some bad event would strike. That event can be because of politics, but it can also be because of nature.
If you move all production to China for example and they have basically a monopoly on producing a certain good, let's say batteries as an example. Then I think it's pretty much inevitably that they're going to use that against you as long as the nation states exist. The prices will start to go up artificially and by then you may start looking for options, but then they may already own all big mines in the world and have taken claim on the basic materials you need.
What do you do then? The only answer is to suck up to whatever their demands are.
> Can someone explain to me why it's a bad thing?
I am just a layman, but how I see it is simple. If you move everything in a branch of business to another country, you will loose the possibility to do that branch in case of some bad event would strike. That event can be because of politics, but it can also be because of nature.
If you move all production to China for example and they have basically a monopoly on producing a certain good, let's say batteries as an example. Then I think it's pretty much inevitably that they're going to use that against you as long as the nation states exist. The prices will start to go up artificially and by then you may start looking for options, but then they may already own all big mines in the world and have taken claim on the basic materials you need.
What do you do then? The only answer is to suck up to whatever their demands are.
There are plenty of devs outside of Silicon Valley. They don't have to look halfway across the world to reduce their costs.
> There are plenty of devs outside of Silicon Valley. They don't have to look halfway across the world to reduce their costs.
Are those devs currently unemployed and waiting for the phone to ring? If they're going to be headhunted out of the current jobs they'll have to make it worth their while. Conversely their current employers may make them counter-offers. The end result being that overall cost of hiring that person can be significantly higher than initially anticipated. If there was an abundant supply of potential workers the wages would face a natural downward pressure. Even in Silicon Valley...
Are those devs currently unemployed and waiting for the phone to ring? If they're going to be headhunted out of the current jobs they'll have to make it worth their while. Conversely their current employers may make them counter-offers. The end result being that overall cost of hiring that person can be significantly higher than initially anticipated. If there was an abundant supply of potential workers the wages would face a natural downward pressure. Even in Silicon Valley...
I agree. This can be great for the shareholders (Uber is not profitable as far as I know) and good for India. If they get rid of some jobs in the US to make this happen then it's not great for those affected. If however they decide that new hires will be in India then nobody loses out. I'm sure many will point out the potential perils of this approach but I don't see why it can't work. India has a large, educated workforce, ready to make their mark. They should give it a try. If it doesn't work out for some reason they can always change direction.
Why not just move the entire company to India, and pay everyone less?
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My guess is that most investors don't want to touch non-US companies.
thats what Zoom does, large part of their engineering is in China
Yeah.. I also wonder about how some of those other Chinese companies do it.. they must somehow be able to find talent in China.. apparently.. I mean, it's amazing..I wonder if they pay them $300k
I also wonder, I know there are a few big software companies in India.. how do they manage to build large operations without hiring $300k per year US engineers from the Bay Area? I wonder if there are actually some good engineers in India. Weird. I heard they were all bad. But I guess with 1.3 billion people they might have a couple of good programmers. Possibly. OR maybe the large Indian software/internet companies probably actually hire the best US engineers and just get by with them. That's probably actually it.
I also wonder, I know there are a few big software companies in India.. how do they manage to build large operations without hiring $300k per year US engineers from the Bay Area? I wonder if there are actually some good engineers in India. Weird. I heard they were all bad. But I guess with 1.3 billion people they might have a couple of good programmers. Possibly. OR maybe the large Indian software/internet companies probably actually hire the best US engineers and just get by with them. That's probably actually it.
Race to the bottom. No rewards for excellence, why bother studying/working hard when all you get is 80k? That's basically a life-time mortgage if you want to own a house.
You cannot get the same talent in India that you get in the U.S., at scale.
not true. Eastern Europe has great engineering talent, India, southeast asia all have great engineering schools and talent.
If there is a scale, it is outside US, it just requires some footwork to find and hire people - which most managers are too lazy to do. Because they are nog saving their own money, it is shareholders money so who cares?
I’ll believe it when I start to see powerful startups becoming global brands out of those places.
branding != engineering. Want to evaluate technical competencies - compare technical artifacts
Maybe that was true at one time, but is it still true? I think China seems like the counter example, since these days China has been innovating much more rapidly than the US on many things.
Its only for a fraction of Indians & it would most likely be those with an MS from the states or ones who's H1Bs just got knocked out.
Its a trend that will reduce US salaries and number of jobs. So US programmers can't be enthused.
I am an Indian new grad currently working in Bangalore. Almost all my classmates have a 15-20 lakh(20-25k dollars) job. And that's a lot of money for most of us straight out of university. I don't see why companies shouldn't move a part of their operations to India since they can save a hell lot of money by hiring here. The sentiment that India is just good for outsourcing trivial jobs is changing quite dramatically I would say. There are 3 factors which can be a problem: language barrier,reduced talent pool and cultural differences.
Regarding language, most of my peers have decent English skills given we have spent like all of school life learning the language(more years are spent learning English than the native language). Most of us also spent a lot of time watching American/British shows in English given the lackluster scene of Indian TV. Yes we can't converse like natives, but I bet Indians can speak English better than most other nations whose second/third language is English.
As far as talent pool is considered, yes we aren't anywhere close to Silicon Valley but I think the gap will reduce in the coming years given the proliferation of the internet. And the explosion of cheap Internet has been a relatively recent event, thanks to "Jio" - a Telecom conglomerate. There is no reason someone who understands English and is persistent enough can't learn basic principles of software engineering from the Internet. Hell just leetcoding is enough to get a job in America(from what I have seen on r/cscareerquestions) Also given India has 4-5 times more students than America, there is a larger pool to sieve from. India already has a more rigorous mathematics education programme(thanks to the russians) and Indians are increasingly getting good at competitive coding competitions. I feel the quality of developers in India is only going to get better with time and software giants can surely set up more and more offices here.
Lastly, cultural differences obviously exist and will continue to exist. But I don't think they are much of an impediment to the work culture. Like most my friends are religiously apathetic and believe in democratic, liberal values unlike say the Chinese. Indians have been working in America for decades and they have done quite well I would say. Cultural differences are reducing with time thanks to multiculturalism and the internet.
India might very well be on the verge of a software boom, thanks to newfound awareness in the youth thanks to cheap Internet and an overall better education than previously. Hell china could do all of this without much help from the west. Now they have their own Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba. India has a lot of handholding from the west and Indian expats, surely we can develop quality software in the coming future as well.
Regarding language, most of my peers have decent English skills given we have spent like all of school life learning the language(more years are spent learning English than the native language). Most of us also spent a lot of time watching American/British shows in English given the lackluster scene of Indian TV. Yes we can't converse like natives, but I bet Indians can speak English better than most other nations whose second/third language is English.
As far as talent pool is considered, yes we aren't anywhere close to Silicon Valley but I think the gap will reduce in the coming years given the proliferation of the internet. And the explosion of cheap Internet has been a relatively recent event, thanks to "Jio" - a Telecom conglomerate. There is no reason someone who understands English and is persistent enough can't learn basic principles of software engineering from the Internet. Hell just leetcoding is enough to get a job in America(from what I have seen on r/cscareerquestions) Also given India has 4-5 times more students than America, there is a larger pool to sieve from. India already has a more rigorous mathematics education programme(thanks to the russians) and Indians are increasingly getting good at competitive coding competitions. I feel the quality of developers in India is only going to get better with time and software giants can surely set up more and more offices here.
Lastly, cultural differences obviously exist and will continue to exist. But I don't think they are much of an impediment to the work culture. Like most my friends are religiously apathetic and believe in democratic, liberal values unlike say the Chinese. Indians have been working in America for decades and they have done quite well I would say. Cultural differences are reducing with time thanks to multiculturalism and the internet.
India might very well be on the verge of a software boom, thanks to newfound awareness in the youth thanks to cheap Internet and an overall better education than previously. Hell china could do all of this without much help from the west. Now they have their own Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba. India has a lot of handholding from the west and Indian expats, surely we can develop quality software in the coming future as well.
Well, there's definitely challenges in moving them to India. But given how technology is commoditised and honestly there are just amazing developers everywhere in the world, I don't see why they would stick paying $500k total comp for an engineer in silicon valley to change font size in a mobile app.
For example, I moved from a third world country to a first one to work as a developer and people here aren't any better, just a bit more lazy, than my former country and worker laws are more strict(better for workers). They could just offshore the work, but instead they want to employ people here for a bigger cost, and I'm here because I get paid magnitudes more than on my home country.
For example, I moved from a third world country to a first one to work as a developer and people here aren't any better, just a bit more lazy, than my former country and worker laws are more strict(better for workers). They could just offshore the work, but instead they want to employ people here for a bigger cost, and I'm here because I get paid magnitudes more than on my home country.
The people clearing over half a million are probably (hopefully) not working on implementing UI tweaks.
The cost of hiring low quality labor to do your “soft” dev work (UI, web front end, etc.) is that you’ll probably end up with a badly done and frustrating-to-use interface with tons of bugs. See like 75% of websites.
The cost of hiring low quality labor to do your “soft” dev work (UI, web front end, etc.) is that you’ll probably end up with a badly done and frustrating-to-use interface with tons of bugs. See like 75% of websites.
I will add something that has recently popped up as a result of the pandemic and apparently was not seen even during 2008 crash. Apparently, companies are considering cutting pay. From that perspective, it is not a surprise that a subset of tech companies will attempt to save money on employee cost. I don't even want to get started since I know management will get bonuses for right-sizing the business.
I want to know how many of the total 3600 engineers are just maintaining the main uber app and how many are off in other ventures (self driving etc.)
Though Uber requires great engineering backbone, the future doesn't seem to be bright on the engineering front.
This seems like the best decision Dara could take at the time being and if Uber is able to recover from this mess all well and good.
A good point taken below is the shift from product-oriented to operations-oriented company. I guess this transition is long-overdue and expected to make sustainable profits.
This seems like the best decision Dara could take at the time being and if Uber is able to recover from this mess all well and good.
A good point taken below is the shift from product-oriented to operations-oriented company. I guess this transition is long-overdue and expected to make sustainable profits.
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People seem to forget that India itself is a huge market, and doing well in India could help innovate for the rest of the world.
This not an American bank outsourcing legacy systems for maintenance, so the usual experience is irrelevant.
Let us remember that uber has engineering teams in countries, where they are not allowed to run a car pooling businesses.
This not an American bank outsourcing legacy systems for maintenance, so the usual experience is irrelevant.
Let us remember that uber has engineering teams in countries, where they are not allowed to run a car pooling businesses.
I feel like this happens because engineering teams get too big and unfocused. This size creates communication overhead (ala mythical man month) and little fiefdoms. The easiest solution is to outsource the jobs. The harder solution would be to streamline the business and the focus.
Bwahaha. Yeah let’s see how that works out. Looking forward to a dead company in 3... 2... 1...
Uber is done. The only way they survive is if they come up with autonomous driving and the only way to do that is dumping money into hiring the best engineers. Waymo will have taxi service in a couple years and that will be the nail in the coffin for Uber.
Nobody will have self-driving taxi service in a couple of years, maybe not even in 20.
Waymo is running driverless taxis in Arizona and has approval from California to go full driverless(L4). They inked a deal for 20,000 cars and a leased a factory in Detroit to install the sensor equipment. Why would they spend that amount of capital if it wasn’t a few years away?
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/27/17165992/waymo-jaguar-i-p...
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/27/17165992/waymo-jaguar-i-p...
Hype.
It's one of a few plays Uber still has before going bankrupt. It typically a sign of a final phase of any SV company. All current Uber engineers should try to move on while they still can.
Why would you hire an $80k Indian when you could easily hire an $80k American from somewhere with lower costs of living than Silicon Valley.
Because hiring an American requires you to treat them like a human being.
People earning 80k in India, China, and heck even Europe, for that matter, almost certainly have a much higher standard of living than people earning that much in the US.
And you can find far more 80k level developers in individual cities in India than you would in a small mid level city in the US.
And you can find far more 80k level developers in individual cities in India than you would in a small mid level city in the US.
You say that, but I'm not so sure.
At some point where you live matters a lot. You can be rich, but if you can't get things shipped because the roads are bad, you can't get clean water, there are no local services around (haircut places, restaurants, tradespeople to fix your house), not to mention fun things to do, it looks worse.
I have this conversation with my friend Mike. I work and live in SF as a software engineer. He lives in Indiana and earns 8-10x what I do as a surgeon but I'm not sure he's actually better off. Especially considering there aren't great schools for him to send his kids to or interesting people to see in meetups.
At some point where you live matters a lot. You can be rich, but if you can't get things shipped because the roads are bad, you can't get clean water, there are no local services around (haircut places, restaurants, tradespeople to fix your house), not to mention fun things to do, it looks worse.
I have this conversation with my friend Mike. I work and live in SF as a software engineer. He lives in Indiana and earns 8-10x what I do as a surgeon but I'm not sure he's actually better off. Especially considering there aren't great schools for him to send his kids to or interesting people to see in meetups.
A large American company might need 100 developers and would rather manage one relationship with one agency in India than search for and manage 100 individual distributed Americans.
In spite of the current remote-work revolution allegedly happening, most companies still want an office with workings coming physically so developers can be tracked and teams can bond and share knowledge. You'll be able to hire an Indian team that will come to an office in Pune or Bangalore, but you probably won't be able to assemble a great team in South Bend or Fort Wayne.
Sure you can. Of course pune has 10 times as many people (including those not in the city but close enough to commute), which limits things. I work in a city much smaller and we have several different great teams of engineers.
Kids who grow up here are excited to bring their degree back close to their family. We have no problem relocating people from other parts of the US, when they need a job and look they realize our small city has what they need, and while the exact attractions are different and lesser, they are still good enough.
Kids who grow up here are excited to bring their degree back close to their family. We have no problem relocating people from other parts of the US, when they need a job and look they realize our small city has what they need, and while the exact attractions are different and lesser, they are still good enough.
That $80k American is at a higher chance of leaving for opportunities domestically.
Who is paying domestically $80k or +$80k/year in India? Probably just FANNG.
I live in Canada and my assumption would be payroll & state taxes would be less in India compared to USA. There is also the advantage of having great leverage over a country when being a big fish in a smaller pool like in India.
Who is paying domestically $80k or +$80k/year in India? Probably just FANNG.
I live in Canada and my assumption would be payroll & state taxes would be less in India compared to USA. There is also the advantage of having great leverage over a country when being a big fish in a smaller pool like in India.
> That $80k American is at a higher chance of leaving for opportunities domestically.
From anecdotal experience, turnover is much higher in India. Changing jobs every 2 years seems to be the standard way of advancing your career and getting a good raise.
From anecdotal experience, turnover is much higher in India. Changing jobs every 2 years seems to be the standard way of advancing your career and getting a good raise.
How many people do you know in India making +$80k/Year switching jobs every 2 years?
how/why did this fall off the first page after barely an hour?
I still like Lyft
Most companies end up having to choose one. If you're the latter, you absolutely don't try competing with FAANG for the same talent.
(I do think Amazon is a rare example of a company that both developed software as a core competency but also real world operations)
That said, I'm always happy to see companies diversifying their geographic footprint. Smart, conscientious people exist everywhere, not just in Western tech-hubs. And I hope in the future the choice isn't viewed as "to be one of the best software companies in the world you have to be in Silicon Valley, but if you want low costs, go to India, etc"