Why is there not more computer science offshoring?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>A little backround, I’m a freshman in college pursuing a computer science degree. I love technology and hope one day to work in a big city as a software engineer or computer analyst. From what I have gathered online, their is a huge domestic demand for computer science grads. </p>

<p>Most websites I visit say it is a common misconception that all the IT jobs are being offshored. They say most customer service, and low level coding jobs are the ones in danger. My question is…why? Why are their not more outsourcing firms with leagues of chinese or Indian programmers? </p>

<p>Why do more employers not send more software engineering and technology jobs offshore? A big factor that attracted me to computer science is job security, but I’m not so confident now. With computers being more a part of our regular life, wether its cell phones or refrigerators, I figured there would alwalys be a demand for skilled software engineers. I might be naive here, but If I was a ceo and could hire a US developer for $70,000 a year plus benefits or two Indian developers at $15,000 a year, there would be an obvious decision. Why are more companies not setting up shop in India or mexico (where workers have the skills but don’t demand as much pay) and outsourcing their work over there? Programming is one of the those jobs that can be done anywhere in the world, and as much as I love programming that aspect of it kind of frightens me. </p>

<p>I might seem naive in asking these questions, but I really am concerned.</p>

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<p>Well…</p>

<p>Depends who you develop software for. If you work for defense contractors then that work certainly won’t be outsourced.</p>

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<p>

Software engineering seems to be a pretty good field, at least statistically speaking, in terms of employment and opportunities. You can check, e.g., the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook to compare projections and past data across several technical and non-technical fields.</p>

<p>

A few possibilities come to mind. First, the adage “you get what you pay for” might apply to some degree; your assumption that Chinese, Indian and Mexican software engineers are equally well-qualified for all development jobs demands proof. Another idea is that, all other things being equal, lower-level jobs are probably offshored first, and these jobs - in addition to being comparatively less (though still highly) skilled - do not emphasize communication. The language of technology and the Internet is English, and America has both the most English speakers of any country in the world, and the most native English speakers of anywhere in the world. This may give Americans (and the British, and Australians, and (many) Canadians, etc.) a comparative advantage in pursuing high-end jobs in the technology sector.</p>

<p>

Again, several factors may be at play here. It takes companies a while to move jobs offshore. It is possible that many, many more jobs will continue leaving. That companies don’t have all offshorable jobs offshored may simply be a logistical issue. Second, companies usually try to balance risk and reward. Hiring cheap foreign labor for sensitive or important projects may in some cases be deemed an unacceptable risk; naturally, there are varying levels of risk. Third, as mentioned earlier, perhaps there are some technology (even development) jobs for which Americans are uniquely qualified and worth the higher pay.</p>

<p>

Being curious doesn’t make you naive. All you hear on most forums and in the news is about how technology jobs are flying off of the continent like hot cakes. There are more and less susceptible areas of software development; there are areas in other disciplines which are more or less susceptible to offshoring (if you check out the BLS OOH - Google it - electrical engineers with a focus in electronics engineering were losing ground in the last report; indeed, manufacturing was largely offshored).</p>

<p>If you love CS and work hard, you should have as good a shot as anybody at getting a job that lets you live comfortably. If you want more than that, you’re going to have to be one of the best at what you do, or be one of the hardest workers at what you do, or get lucky.</p>

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<p>

With the federal budget the way it is, outsourcing might be the least of people’s worries.</p>

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<p>If you want to do well in the CS field you need to be the one who has the listening skills to listen to the clients problem and develope the plan to solve it. Not too many technical people are capable of truely understanding the non-technical mind. If the client says I need a program to track weight and you write a program to track density you have failed. Can you be that translation person? Or do you just want the boss to tell you what the parameters are and leave you alone to code, because that part is easy to offshore, out source or H-1B.</p>

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<p>During the time when offshore outsourcing was a big business fad (coinciding with the tech bubble crash to make job prospects in CS very poor at the time), many companies ran off to India as fast as they can to the cheapest outsourcing contractors.</p>

<p>It was only a little while later that they learned that one does not get IIT graduates from the cheapest outsourcing contractors.</p>

<p>It still does make business sense to go offshore for some purposes, such as 24-hour technical support. But if one wants quality, one will have to pay for it, no matter where. Yes, quality may be cheaper in India or China, but issues like time zone coordination and the like add other costs, unless (as in the case of 24-hour technical support) such factors are an advantage for the situation.</p>

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<p>I think part of the problem is IP - software is the easiest thing to pirate, and preventing piracy is a lot easier in the US and other “expensive” countries than it is in many other places. It does you no good outsourcing your work to $15k a year engineers if they are going to leak it to the public or sell it to your competitors.</p>

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<p>There are a lot more to CS jobs than “here’s the perameters, now code it.”</p>

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<p>The Federal Reserve has said that it wants to devalue the US dollar by 40% over the next 20 years. That should increase the price of offshoring nicely.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the response guys. What fields of computer science are the most “Non offshore-able”…? I know that defense contractor work and cyber-security stays at home, but are their any other branches that are far less likely to be outsourced and offshored?</p>

<p>On a side note, I can speak fluent Spanish and am currently learning Portuguese. I know it can’t hurt, but is it possible that can help my career in the IT industry? </p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

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<p>Knowledge of additional (human) languages is certainly helpful if you work on something that is to be internationalized.</p>

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<p>Anything can be offshored if it is not something that the US government would consider a threat to US security. If you don’t work on classified software, you should at least consider that you are competing with people all over the world.</p>

<p>There is a school of thought that some software jobs are best left in the US because they are closer to the sources of capital (e.g. startups located in Boston, the SF bay area, NYC, Atlanta, and a few other places where the angel investors and venture capitalists are). Another school of thought says software jobs should be in or near locations with top US computer science or software engineering departments. So, you might want to try to get a job in one of those locations.</p>

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<p>Capital is more mobile than labor – areas which already have a concentration of computer professionals, and which have good universities in computer science which can feed more, are likely to be more attractive for companies to locate in.</p>

<p>It has also been claimed that Silicon Valley’s development (with many companies and start-ups) was helped by pre-existing California law that made most types of non-compete agreements for employees unenforceable. In other words, employees felt less “locked in” to their current employer and could go work at an interesting new start-up or whatever.</p>

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<p>Now actually think about this and you’ll realize there’s nothing wrong with that at all. That’s actually quite a bit less than normal inflation over the last century.</p>

<p>Inflation is a good thing. It encourages people to invest their money and earn an interest rate rather than stuff their money under their bed. It motivates consumers to provide capital to drive economic growth. Inflation is only bad when it is not steady and predictable.</p>

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<p>Oh don’t get political or they might lock or delete your thread!</p>

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</p>

<p>I’m not so sure about that.</p>

<p>[Boeing</a> to outsource US fighter jet components to India](<a href=“http://www.news24online.com/ViewDetails.aspx?NewsId=204]Boeing”>http://www.news24online.com/ViewDetails.aspx?NewsId=204)</p>

<p>[Lockheed</a> Martin Hopes To Outsource Component Manufacturing To India, Report Says | News | Manufacturing.net](<a href=“http://www.manufacturing.net/news/2006/06/lockheed-martin-hopes-to-outsource-component-manufacturing-to-india-report-says]Lockheed”>http://www.manufacturing.net/news/2006/06/lockheed-martin-hopes-to-outsource-component-manufacturing-to-india-report-says)</p>

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<p>

Defense industries do source some components from overseas (for example, the 120mm cannon on the M1A2 Abrams MBT) and do sometimes outsource components from dated domestic systems (like the F/A-18 parts you noted), but are much much more resistant to such things than most industries. Such outsourcing also affects relatively few engineers, as the components themselves are designed and tested in the US - most of the domestic losses are in manufacturing. This is often a result of intentional diplomatic efforts by the US government (who really want us exporting military equipment), or a result of extranational laws requiring shared manufacturing.</p>

<p>Compare this to non-defense manufacturers like Apple - do they make ANYTHING in the US?</p>

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Actually, does Apple make anything at all?</p>

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<p>Apple makes intellectual property and designs and makes money. It subcontracts manufacturing, if that is what you mean.</p>

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<p>

Yes, that’s what I was getting at.</p>