[Yahoo News] The Vanishing Programmer

[The Mad Hatter]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... rogrammers

Say goodbye to the American software programmer. Once the symbols of hope as the nation shifted from manufacturing to service jobs, programmers today are an endangered species. They face a challenge similar to that which shrank the ranks of steelworkers and autoworkers a quarter century ago: competition from foreigners.


Some experts think they'll become extinct within the next few years, forced into unemployment or new careers by a combination of offshoring of their work to India and other low-wage countries and the arrival of skilled immigrants taking their jobs.


Not everybody agrees programmers will disappear completely. But even the optimists believe that many basic programming jobs will go to foreign nations, leaving behind jobs for Americans to lead and manage software projects. The evidence is already mounting that many computer jobs are endangered, prompting concern about the future of the nation's high-tech industries.


Since the dotcom bust in 2000-2001, nearly a quarter of California technology workers have taken nontech jobs, according to a study of 1 million workers released last week by Sphere Institute, a San Francisco Bay Area public policy group. The jobs they took often paid less. Software workers were hit especially hard. Another 28% have dropped off California's job rolls altogether. They fled the state, became unemployed, or decided on self-employment.


The problem is not limited to California.


Although computer-related jobs in the United States increased by 27,000 between 2001 and 2003, about 180,000 new foreign H-1B workers in the computer area entered the nation, calculates John Miano, an expert with the Programmers Guild, a professional society. "This suggests any gain of jobs have been taken by H-1B workers," he says.


H-1B visas allow skilled foreigners to live and work in the US for up to six years. Many are able to get green cards in a first step to citizenship. Another visa, L-1, allows multinational companies to transfer workers from foreign operations into the US.


The H-1B visa has been highly controversial for years. This fiscal year, Congress set a quota of 65,000 visas, which was snapped up immediately after they became available Oct.1. Now, US business is pleading for Congress to let in more such workers.


The US Chamber of Commerce, for instance, wants Congress to revisit the cap "to ensure American business has access to the talent it needs to help keep our economy strong."


That rationale makes no sense to the Programmers Guild and other groups that have sprung up to resist the tech visas. Since more than 100,000 American programmers are unemployed - and many more are underemployed - the existing 65,000 quota is inexcusably high, they argue. H-1B and L-1 visas are "American worker replacement programs," says the National Hire American Citizens Society.


Further, the H-1B program, set up in 1990, is flawed, critics charge. For example, employers are not required to recruit Americans before resorting to hiring H-1Bs, says Norman Matloff, a computer science professor at the University of California, Davis.


And the requirement that employers pay H-1Bs a "prevailing wage" is useless, he adds, because the law is riddled with loopholes. Nor are even any remaining regulations enforced.


The average wage for an American programmer runs about $60,000, says John Bauman, who set up the Organization for the Rights of American Workers. Employers pay H-1Bs an average $53,000.


A programmer, Mr. Bauman was out of work for 20 months before finally taking a job with a 40% pay cut. His experience is common enough that programmers are organizing to fight in Congress against H-1B and L-1 visas.


But they face an uphill battle, says Mr. Miano, as business groups are far better organized and funded than the smattering of programmer groups. "They have the best legislation money can buy," he says.


Miano sees such a dim future for programmers that he decided to enter law school. "I saw the handwriting on the wall," he says.

[khomotso]

Some devil's advocacy:

As the article suggests, are there not several tiers in the programming world, and does the shift overseas not impact one of them more than others? A basic coder is worth less than they used to be, true, but what about skilled software architects? Is the lost programming work not most often the "grunt" programming work?

And wouldn't it be true that comparisons with the dot-com boom rather distort the case? You might argue that way too many people jumped on the CS bandwagon in those days, including a good chunk of people who had no real aptitude for the industry, and there is more "healthy correction" in the numbers here than decline.

I don't think talented IT people should be too quick to jump to another industry - I'm not sure it's the whole industry that's in trouble, so much as a certain kind of work within the industry.

[Koz]

$60,000 for a basic programmer? Jeese, I'm a programmer and I make considerably less. I think these unemployed tech guys will have to take serious paycuts if they expect to work in the same field.

Of course I'm not immune either. It would be a good idea to find other stuff I'm interested in and would want to make a career out of. But for now I think I'm quite secure with where I'm at, even if it doesn't pay much (relatively speaking).

[gbasden]

I really haven't quite figured out how people can still be for the H-1B visa. During the boom, when people were hiring anyone with a pulse for tech jobs, I could see it. But the tech industry is floundering, and I know really qualified people that have been searching for quite awhile for a decent position.

Shouldn't we be looking for ways of keeping this talent here, rather than helping to snuff it out?

[malchior]

gbasden, I agree with you about the visas. They are now an excuse to get them in the country long enough to train them to take the job back out of the country.

Unfortunately, the Government and especially Congress as a whole has long given up on stewardship for the common man and instead serves as the mouthpiece of industry.

Well, of course, Bush is going to send us back to community college to prepare us for the jobs of the 21st Century, whatever that means.

[Dirt]

The days of $100,000/year programmers are over. That's Executive salary.

[Little Raven]

This isn't quite true. American programmers won't disappear, at least not altogether. I'm a programmer and my job isn't going anywhere. But I work on small-scale custom stuff for the agency that employees me. If we're comparing programmers to steel workers, then I'm the equivilant of an on-site handy man. You can't outsource that. But the teams of programmers working for Initech are going the way of the Dodo, and fast. There's just no competing with the global labor arbitrage.

But don't worry, programmers, the others will get theirs soon enough. Accountants, analysts, even some doctors will all find their jobs heading overseas in the very near future. Presumably the lawyers are safe, but one has to wonder if that market is getting over-saturated already.

The race to the bottom is real.

[geezer]

gbasden, I agree with you about the visas. They are now an excuse to get them in the country long enough to train them to take the job back out of the country.

Unfortunately, the Government and especially Congress as a whole has long given up on stewardship for the common man and instead serves as the mouthpiece of industry.

Well, of course, Bush is going to send us back to community college to prepare us for the jobs of the 21st Century, whatever that means.

Counterpoint:

My company employs an H1-B worker along with 4 other C++ programmers. It used to be six, but two left their jobs (which paid between 60 and 85K) for higher paying jobs. We interviewed to replace those folks and were turned down by our top candidates on offers of 80K. An employee that was offered 70 did eventually take the job after negotiating up from 75 leaving us with one spot to fill. (He was honest enough to tell us that at 70 he'd work as long as he couldn't find another, higher-paying job.)

Consequently, we will be looking to H1B employees to fill the remaining spot, and will pay them a competitive salary. It's not an issue so much of saving money, but the fact that an H1B employee can't take the training and jump immediately from company to company, taking trade secrets an the time you put into training them.

It cuts both ways folks -- most companies are not as loyal to employees as they once were, but in the same way, most employees will jump ship whenever it's in their best interests to do so. H1B employees get good salaries and a chance to experience American industry, and in return companies get employees with a lower chance of bolting in the short term. For smaller companies, this is critical.

[gbasden]

gbasden, I agree with you about the visas. They are now an excuse to get them in the country long enough to train them to take the job back out of the country.

Unfortunately, the Government and especially Congress as a whole has long given up on stewardship for the common man and instead serves as the mouthpiece of industry.

Well, of course, Bush is going to send us back to community college to prepare us for the jobs of the 21st Century, whatever that means.

Counterpoint:

My company employs an H1-B worker along with 4 other C++ programmers. It used to be six, but two left their jobs (which paid between 60 and 85K) for higher paying jobs. We interviewed to replace those folks and were turned down by our top candidates on offers of 80K. An employee that was offered 70 did eventually take the job after negotiating up from 75 leaving us with one spot to fill. (He was honest enough to tell us that at 70 he'd work as long as he couldn't find another, higher-paying job.)

Consequently, we will be looking to H1B employees to fill the remaining spot, and will pay them a competitive salary. It's not an issue so much of saving money, but the fact that an H1B employee can't take the training and jump immediately from company to company, taking trade secrets an the time you put into training them.

It cuts both ways folks -- most companies are not as loyal to employees as they once were, but in the same way, most employees will jump ship whenever it's in their best interests to do so. H1B employees get good salaries and a chance to experience American industry, and in return companies get employees with a lower chance of bolting in the short term. For smaller companies, this is critical.

So, because you can hire the equivalent of an indentured servant, it's a good thing? I suppose it is for the company, but U can't think it's great for everyone else. My previous company abused our H-1B visa folks - they had to work longer hours and were afraid to complain because they were concerned that the job might go away and they would be deported.

I can't fault your company for taking advantage of a good situation for them, but I can fault the folks in Washington that allow it in the first place.

[Kraken]

Programmers: Did you really not foresee the day that you'd be replaced by computers?

[Zarathud]

The day that I saw a Java and C++ programmer playing his Sax in the Chicago Loop alongside a poster-board sized resume was when the immensity of the dot-com bust hit me like a sledgehammer.

Is this the America we want to live in -- the economy of the middle managers and not the producers? Being those who are eternally subject to downsizing at a corporate whim? There's something wrong when people's futures are still uncertain after doing everything right, graduating with advanced degrees at the top of their classes, and all those great sacrifices mean nothing.

This point hit home again when I saw the effect of Arthur Anderson collapsing after the Enron debacle. I used to work in the consulting group of another large accounting firm in Chicago, and I knew a lot of immensely talented people who found themselves adrift when a few months earlier, they had done everything right and enjoyed well-earned success. Luckily, I left the consulting field after graduating from law school and passing the bar. But this level of insecurity in all sectors of the economy is something that President G.W. Bush's "get an education" answer won't fix. If there is no job waiting for the graduates, all that schooling just translates into another bill you can't pay.

[Snow]

A few random thoughts on this topic:

#1 A degree in "business information systems" is a dead-end. Better to major in engineering, math, etc. These degrees use programming as a means to an end and train general analytical, thinking skills. A BIS degree typically means the low end of the totem poll and maintenance programming. Harsh, but true.

#2 Lead programmers/architects can still find new jobs over 6 figures. The key is you have to be good and have the people skills for interviewing. My former consulting budies that went corporate are still doing quite well. In the consulting world, if you want to make the "big" bucks, you have to travel (which really sucks).

#3 Not eveyone can visualize, design or otherwise create new stuff. There was a glut of people who couldn't in the 90's with regards to programming. I agree with an above poster that we've seen a correction. I worked with countless people that couldn't code there way out of a loop that started with an idex of zero making far too much money. Companies were looking for bodies to add 19 and 20 in front of a two digit year. I still grit my teeth.

#4 A lot of these damn Indians taking our jobs are really nice and talented people. We're talking creame of the crop, and they don't complain. Damn them But, life is not so good for them, because now the Chinese are coming to play. Just ask the consulting company I work for!

#5 I love designing and architecting, but for the past year I've just been teaching other people how to create OO systems. I've always taught (the billing rates are high and it worked wonders for establishing new business), but I'd rather hit most corporate employees over the head than wait for the symbolic lightbulb to go off. My best students are most often those damn foreigners that really want the opportunity.

#6 In a strange twist, my consulting group is now being proposed as part of deals to outsource entire IT departments. See, if you have people we can retool and hire, you don't need to feel so bad that we've shipped your former employees oversees. We'll keep some of them on to do near shore work if they can pass our training. Damn, I need to get the Donald Trump snake firing technique down. I've already been through a couple of these groups, and the stress level is incredible. At the end of the day, some of these people are pouring out their life stories. Some of these people are 20 years my senior. The problem is, if I don't evaluate them correctly I'll eventually lose my credibility and job. Yikes!

#7 If you're at a comfortable IT job, not doing too much (aka have time to browse these forums all day during work ) and have long deadlines with lots of paper work and time reporting for no product produced then look out. The company I work for, or one of its competitors are probably talking with your CEO's about outsourcing the entire IT staff.

Ok, that's enough ruminations about uncertainty and harsh reality for me tonight. Be afriad

[geezer]

gbasden, I agree with you about the visas. They are now an excuse to get them in the country long enough to train them to take the job back out of the country.

Unfortunately, the Government and especially Congress as a whole has long given up on stewardship for the common man and instead serves as the mouthpiece of industry.

Well, of course, Bush is going to send us back to community college to prepare us for the jobs of the 21st Century, whatever that means.

Counterpoint:

My company employs an H1-B worker along with 4 other C++ programmers. It used to be six, but two left their jobs (which paid between 60 and 85K) for higher paying jobs. We interviewed to replace those folks and were turned down by our top candidates on offers of 80K. An employee that was offered 70 did eventually take the job after negotiating up from 75 leaving us with one spot to fill. (He was honest enough to tell us that at 70 he'd work as long as he couldn't find another, higher-paying job.)

Consequently, we will be looking to H1B employees to fill the remaining spot, and will pay them a competitive salary. It's not an issue so much of saving money, but the fact that an H1B employee can't take the training and jump immediately from company to company, taking trade secrets an the time you put into training them.

It cuts both ways folks -- most companies are not as loyal to employees as they once were, but in the same way, most employees will jump ship whenever it's in their best interests to do so. H1B employees get good salaries and a chance to experience American industry, and in return companies get employees with a lower chance of bolting in the short term. For smaller companies, this is critical.

So, because you can hire the equivalent of an indentured servant, it's a good thing? I suppose it is for the company, but U can't think it's great for everyone else. My previous company abused our H-1B visa folks - they had to work longer hours and were afraid to complain because they were concerned that the job might go away and they would be deported.

I can't fault your company for taking advantage of a good situation for them, but I can fault the folks in Washington that allow it in the first place.

Er..no. If your former company was abusing their H1B folks that's inexcusable, and likewise if they were afraid to bring it to someones attention for fear of losing their jobs, that's bad as well. But that's largely irrelevant to my point.

My point is, people have the nerve to complain that it's "unfair" to allow companies to get rid of employees in favor of another employee (that happens to be from out of the country) but these same people think it's perfectly acceptable that the American worker jump ship as soon as they are offered a higher salary. So why does the company owe the worker something (loyalty) the worker willnot offer the company?

On a more philosophical level, let me ask you, If I'm in CA and I hire a worker from Russia that comes to the states, pays his or her taxes and contributes to a succcessful and growing enterprise, why is that inherently unfair to the guy I would have had to import from, say Boston? Put another way, why is the guy from Boston more entitled to that position that the guy from Russia?

[Zarathud]

Put another way, why is the guy from Boston more entitled to that position that the guy from Russia?

The guy from Boston is a citizen who votes. And if he can't feed himself or his family, the rest of society will likely pay instead.

I've known a Canadian who came down on a H-1B visa who ended up with "additional responsibilities" which completely negated the reason why she wanted the job, and why the company obtained her the H-1B visa. But she felt that she couldn't complain, so she dealt with it until finding a new job here in the US. It's all about power -- and the reason why those on a H-1B visa are more attractive is that without power, the foreign worker costs less and will be less likely to complain. That's not right.

When Ford opened the first auto plants, he was smart enough to pay his workers well enough so that they could buy the very cars they made. Treating the workers well helped the economy and led to significant economic progress. That was good long-term economics. These days, business cares about nothing but the short-term benefits of outsourcing. In my view, that's a recipe for disaster.

[geezer]

Put another way, why is the guy from Boston more entitled to that position that the guy from Russia?

The guy from Boston is a citizen who votes. And if he can't feed himself or his family, the rest of society will likely pay instead.

I've known a Canadian who came down on a H-1B visa who ended up with "additional responsibilities" which completely negated the reason why she wanted the job, and why the company obtained her the H-1B visa. But she felt that she couldn't complain, so she dealt with it until finding a new job here in the US. It's all about power -- and the reason why those on a H-1B visa are more attractive is that without power, the foreign worker costs less and will be less likely to complain. That's not right.

When Ford opened the first auto plants, he was smart enough to pay his workers well enough so that they could buy the very cars they made. Treating the workers well helped the economy and led to significant economic progress. That was good long-term economics. These days, business cares about nothing but the short-term benefits of outsourcing. In my view, that's a recipe for disaster.

And many employees care about nothing but the short term benefits of a larger paycheck thatthey can get from the cmpany down the road, leaving the company weaker and potentially effecting the people still at the now weakened company.

My point is, to bitch about the company only caring about its bottom line is valid, but the workers do the EXACT SAME THING and artifically limiting the selectable workforce is unfair when the workers are just as disloyal as the employers.

[Faldarian]

And many employees care about nothing but the short term benefits of a larger paycheck thatthey can get from the cmpany down the road, leaving the company weaker and potentially effecting the people still at the now weakened company.

My point is, to bitch about the company only caring about its bottom line is valid, but the workers do the EXACT SAME THING and artifically limiting the selectable workforce is unfair when the workers are just as disloyal as the employers.

I disagree for a few reasons.

First being that, for the most part, the average guy doesn't have a lot of choice but to take that better paying job if he wants to move up in the world... especially in IT jobs, where extremely long tenure isn't overly common.

The second is that those moves are what builds an all new entry level staff. For a job like IT where you have to start at the bottom and work your way up as you learn, you don't necessarily jump into X job and automatically qualify to do both Y and Z as well. By that X job person moving into the higher-paying Y job and leaving the X job open, it opens growth to the field by making room for people at the lower end of the scale.

Entry-level jobs in IT, from programming help to helpdesk, are almost nonexistent right now. You've got guys with MCSE's and 2-4 year CS degrees doing helpdesk work, waiting for jobs to open up in their actual profession so that they can move into them. You've got entry-level A+ techs unemployed for lack of anywhere to turn because that structure degraded; it WORKED, and really well for a number of years, because it gave IT workers a great way to move up and learn and progress through an in-demand field. It started to fail from the top down, and now it's hard as hell to even get into the field to begin with.

Bush talked about saving healthcare by reducing costs with IT in medical facilities, but that's just not going to happen (I work in the IT division of one of the nation's best hospitals). There's a whole new degree of cost that gets involved, and a whole level of expertise that gets lost by not having the building blocks in place for an entry-level support structure that will wind up costing even more money down the road as a result.

He talked about how the job outlook isn't bad and how there's more money in my pocket than four years ago, which isn't true for anyone I know in the field outside of the place I work now (since it's pretty well entrenched with long-term employees, in part because there's nowhere for them to go). Half the people I knew from a previous job hit by layoffs still are not working after a year and a half, and the other half wound up taking jobs similar to the one they lost for a major pay cut.

So I guess that my point is that the programmers are disappearing, but the people aren't moving to another field; they're moving down in the IT field and cutting the bottom out of it, removing any real growth structure that it had in the late 90's. Pay is down, work is hard to get and growth is stagnant where it exists at all, and it all started to collapse from the top down.

[Unbreakable]

this is the age old issue of protectionism vs. free markets. And its also the most difficult. But since I work in IT, I can say that Americans are some of the most quality programmers (assuming you can get them to work, that is).

Case in point: my friend works as an IT project lead for a large international bank. A few years ago they decided to outsource almost all of their programming projects to India. The code they got back was consistantly BAD, and required extensive work to make functional; hopefully everybody here knows how badly programs perform which were bad from the start and had to be 'made' right. So in short, it was a disaster, but since it was a multimillion dollar project, the people responsible were in their own version of Bushworld over it, while the grunts had to deal with the fallout from a bad decision.

Fortunately for them, their CEO was shitcanned last year, and a new one brought in. After a short review, the heads of those responsible for the outsourcing fiasco started to roll. All is not perfect there now, but things are a good deal better than they previously had been.

And frankly, this story turns out typical, in many respects, of the realworld outsourcing I hear about. There are huge problems, starting with the language barrier, and working down to the fact that you have no quality control over the programmers. If a company can feel comfortable having a freshly graduated programmer who's last job two years ago was herding goats writing the database which will handly millions of dollars in transactions, hey, more power to ya.

Ther CEO from my first IT job was actually kind of a dick, but he had one gem of advice I'll always remember- "Never have somebody involved in something important if you can't fire them".

[Snow]

And frankly, this story turns out typical, in many respects, of the realworld outsourcing I hear about. There are huge problems, starting with the language barrier, and working down to the fact that you have no quality control over the programmers. If a company can feel comfortable having a freshly graduated programmer who's last job two years ago was herding goats writing the database which will handly millions of dollars in transactions, hey, more power to ya.

Ther CEO from my first IT job was actually kind of a dick, but he had one gem of advice I'll always remember- "Never have somebody involved in something important if you can't fire them".

First off, I'm not trying to defend outsourcing. It's here, a reality and not much to do about it unless you want to screw over other industries with protectionism.

That being said, I think your idea of outsourcing is outdated. Take the company that bought us out, for example. If they outsource your IT department, you'll never have direct contact with a single Canadian, Irishman or Indian. All their work goes through US offices. Also, the people outsourced to aren't "goat herders". You ever done your research on the Indian technical schools?

Sure, everyone has their bad outsourcing stories, but based upon my companies success I think there are far more successes than failures these days. I wish it would all fail miserably and the US would dominate all IT work, but I've worked with too many talented foreigners to try to live fantasy.

[Faldarian]

That being said, I think your idea of outsourcing is outdated. Take the company that bought us out, for example. If they outsource your IT department, you'll never have direct contact with a single Canadian, Irishman or Indian. All their work goes through US offices. Also, the people outsourced to aren't "goat herders". You ever done your research on the Indian technical schools?

Sure, everyone has their bad outsourcing stories, but based upon my companies success I think there are far more successes than failures these days. I wish it would all fail miserably and the US would dominate all IT work, but I've worked with too many talented foreigners to try to live fantasy.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,103955,00.html

A lot of customers disagree, and some companies are going back to try and fix that now.

They don't outsource those jobs because they're better than us at them, or even because they can get the same thing for less. It's plain and simple because they're cheaper and feel they can cut corners on support.

I should probably note that I'm a bit biased on the issue having been laid off twice before because of outsourcing to Canada and India. The customers don't get support that is as good as what they would get here, but at least I did my part to make sure some CEO can drive a bigger yacht than he used to [/b]

[Snow]

I think we're talking two different types of outsourcing. On the customer support end, I agree. It just can't ever be as good from a country/culture different than your own.

[Zarathud]

Picking up a discarded mantra from the business school scrapheap:

"All business ultimately is about customer satisfaction."

People call much less to complain when the car doesn't fall apart when driving it off the lot.

[RunningMn9]

When Ford opened the first auto plants, he was smart enough to pay his workers well enough so that they could buy the very cars they made. Treating the workers well helped the economy and led to significant economic progress. That was good long-term economics. These days, business cares about nothing but the short-term benefits of outsourcing. In my view, that's a recipe for disaster.

IIRC, he gave the employees discounts on the cars so that they could afford them, and he was sued by the shareholders over it (and he lost).

The Corporations responsibility is to produce profits for it's shareholders. If it can do that by paying people in other countries to do your job for 1/5 the cost - it will do it.

The whole thing is a sham. If companies weren't allowed to do this, and thus couldn't generate the profits they need, all sorts of bad things happen - which will ultimately trickle down to the little guy.

Welcome to the unsustainable economy.

That said, there are plenty of reasons to not out-source programming work, and there are plenty of companies that make the decision to not outsource every day. Lucky for me, I work for a division of a company that learned the hard way that outsourcing isn't what you want to be doing in our field.

Although we do have a number of H-1B visa workers here - who all do a very good job and get paid competitive salaries. And they certainly seem free to complain when they think it's necessary.