Why single out India? Sure, it's become a bit of a byword for "outsource" but I think you'd find the same were you to outsource to any country - even within your own country.
The problems pointed out largely surrounding happen due to the difficulty of communicating with a remote team. Having the product owner and the development team geographically distant make everything ten times harder; doesn't matter if they're in India or on the other side of the same country.
Agree that communication (or lack thereof) is a key issue. That can be worked out but having 11PM conference calls or combined hacking sessions stretching to 2-3 AM gets old very quickly.
Another is the fact that the culture within a lot of contract shops isn't exactly innovation-driven. I really don't understand how you could get an engineer/coder passionate enough to be interested in some stranger's project.
Net net I agree with the author: you can still make a career out of tech. The doomsayers from ~10 years ago who predicted the end of the US programmer were wrong. I don't think however that big companies (Cisco/Microsoft: any company with a big India development center) will ever hire legions of US programmers again though. That train has long since left the station.
I don't think however that big companies (Cisco/Microsoft: any company with a big India development center) will ever hire legions of US programmers again though. That train has long since left the station.
Are you sure? Lots of US companies are hiring lots of US developers. Google comes to mind immediately, but I'm sure everyone else is too.
At the big company where I work they're actively getting rid of their US-based employees and hiring in India and China. My employer isn't one of the ones I mentioned above. But I know from friends working there, that this is the case there as well.
I think there are a number of reasons for this.
1. Many engineers just aren't interested in the old fogey US tech companies. Do you think a smart kid out of a US college would be more interested in working at Google/Facebook or at Cisco/Microsoft? As a result they have a tough time hiring. In India, people actually LIKE working for the man at big giant companies. It is a status symbol. So its a lot easier to pick up good talent there even if the company is regarded as a has-been in Silicon Valley.
2. At some point in a tech company's lifespan, decisions seem to be made purely for financial/cost-saving reasons instead of for product/customer reasons. This is usually the point at which good engineers start leaving the company because they realize the bean counters are running things.
This is also when these companies start expanding their India ops. Word gets around, and hence this is somewhat co-related to point #1.
3. Empire building: For some weird reason, engineering managers love having a lot of reports. Its reasonably cheap and easy to staff up in India and China, which means an engineering manager at some loser company in the US can get to brag that he (its always a he) has 100 engineers reporting to him.
The problems pointed out largely surrounding happen due to the difficulty of communicating with a remote team. Having the product owner and the development team geographically distant make everything ten times harder; doesn't matter if they're in India or on the other side of the same country.