[Natetan]

I especially hate the word 'vendor'. It's like outsourcing has developed such a pejorative meaning that calling it a vendor makes it more palatable.

Anyway I've seen the quality if work vendors do with our data. I don't really support it. We need Japanese language skills so we outsource to China sometimes. I'd much rather have a native speaker thank you.

Even for English language stuff we outsourced alot of stuff to south Africa. The thin is people think India and south Africa are all native level English speakers which Isn't necessarily true. Alot of people on those places don't speak English outside of work.

[pje122]

Are many/most IT jobs like this? I've been thinking about going into IT and getting a degree in info systems. I hate the idea of instability in a career.

What do you mean by getting into IT? Tell me a specific role you are interested in.

[slit]

God threads like this scare me. After I graduated it took me a while to find permanent work, but I did with a health insurance company. I really like the atmosphere and the chance they give you to grow but these types of conversations make me nervous. I'm just glad I didn't go into tech support, I was considering it.

[ccbfan]

Developer/efficient programming/low level programming is pretty much the only IT jobs thats safe currently.

Developers have to meet with clients (co-workers in IT departments) hear and review their needs and then design the best approach to fixing these needs and implement them. You basically have to give your clients what they need when they don't even know they need it. No outsourcing can cover this.

Efficient Programming - Code that's really fast and really memory efficient. Also clean. If you're good at this enjoy making 6 figures at any financial institution.

Low level programming - really low level like OS, robotics and kernel stuff. Way too complicated and hard even for most CS people.

[shuri]

ALso, people in IT, prepare yourself for the true job killer - cloud computing. This shit will slaughter lots of tech support guys in the coming years. This and the move to tablet computing where everything is modular with little to no need for support or rather 'under the hood' work

I'm preparing myself for this.

[slit]

ALso, people in IT, prepare yourself for the true job killer - cloud computing. This shit will slaughter lots of tech support guys in the coming years. This and the move to tablet computing where everything is modular with little to no need for support or rather 'under the hood' work I'm preparing myself for this.

Just curious, how?

[Mairu]

This post is depressing considering I just graduated and I'm looking for a job in IT :(

[rSpooky]

Sigh.. So sad and true I am feeling the same thing. Recently the word was outsourcing as soon as after this summer. Now we know we are safe at least until 2014. But then anything goes.

[LM4sure]

Outsourcing is a good thing. Companies can save money and maximize profits. As a shareholder, I approve!!!!

[Zaptruder]

Outsourcing is a good thing. Companies can save money and maximize profits. As a shareholder, I approve!!!!

Except they don't save money, or maximize profits. The only thing it does is make their temporary accounting balance sheet look good for a quarter before the reality kicks them in their nuts and they dust it under the rug while looking for more things to generate buzz.

Sending jobs off-shore is basically the cheap lazy maneuver to getting the market temporarily interested in your company because you're so shitty and clueless and out of ideas that you have to resort to a tried and tested method of excessive shittiness.

[LM4sure]

Except they don't save money, or maximize profits. The only thing it does is make their temporary accounting balance sheet look good for a quarter before the reality kicks them in their nuts and they dust it under the rug while looking for more things to generate buzz. Sending jobs off-shore is basically the cheap lazy maneuver to getting the market temporarily interested in your company because you're so shitty and clueless and out of ideas that you have to resort to a tried and tested method of excessive shittiness.

What? But the Indians are paid much, much less. So by lowering expenses, you are increasing profits. It's mathematics, my friend.

[Half and half]

Well, I have a blabbermouth,

No kidding! You just told the internet.

Never let anyone outside of the family know what you're thinking.

[shuri]

The final product is garbage!

[Chumly]

What? But the Indians are paid much, much less. So by lowering expenses, you are increasing profits. It's mathematics, my friend.

If your actually being serious just read through the thread. Outsourcing does not always lead to increasing profits and a lot of times it can cost more.

[Chichikov]

I'm a programmer, and the company I contract for has an onshore and offshore team in India. It basically boils down to this: US programmers are about 3-5 times more productive than their Indian counterpart. We are also an order of magnitude more expensive.

Shit man, you must lucked out on some fucking dumb Indians.
Listen, I'm not a fan of outsourcing, working remotely is still not as efficient and the time difference kills you, but they have some great programmers and great software houses there.

[SolKane]

Anyone have any statistics or empirical information on the kinds of jobs being outsourced, and at what rate?

[Echoes of Pink]

Just curious, how?

My personal anecdote as an IT manager for a 40 person company:

I'm the only official IT person for the whole company which is entirely internet based (hosted web app, email, voip phones for remote workers and a small home base). I do everything that I know how to do for the company: help desk support, windows and linux server admin, VOIP phones admin and support, manage our website and webapps, networking, project management, security, etc. Anything I don't know how to do goes to a vendor. Our current list of IT vendors include:

Server hosting
VOIP hardware
Internet and PRI
IT Consulting
3 different developers
Internet Faxing

At one point, we may have needed many more people to run the business. Right now, we only need 1 full time person and the rest can be outsourced to vendors for nominal fees. Each of those vendors I listed needs fewer people because they all specialize in certain task and support a lot of clients. Add in low cost oversea labor and the IT field seems to be racing toward few positions that are exceptionally productive.

Anyway, that is my take on it which doesn't mean much. haha.

[Zaptruder]

What? But the Indians are paid much, much less. So by lowering expenses, you are increasing profits. It's mathematics, my friend.

Loss in efficiency, loss in quality, loss of knowledge, communication problems, workflow problems are all common problems in out-sourcing.

Basically the people that think like you... are the same people that are not equipped to do outsourcing properly.

It can benefit a few companies if they're in the correct positions and have prepared correctly for the issue, but in general - you're going to spend more in the short term to achieve that, then you would by retaining existing staff. I mean, to do it effectively, you'd essentially need a transition period where you're hiring both sets of staff to do the one job.

[slit]

Loss in efficiency, loss in quality, loss of knowledge, communication problems, workflow problems are all common problems in out-sourcing. Basically the people that think like you... are the same people that are not equipped to do outsourcing properly. It can benefit a few companies if they're in the correct positions and have prepared correctly for the issue, but in general - you're going to spend more in the short term to achieve that, then you would by retaining existing staff. I mean, to do it effectively, you'd essentially need a transition period where you're hiring both sets of staff to do the one job.

I don't really think he's being serious.

[Kod1ak]

What do you mean by getting into IT? Tell me a specific role you are interested in.

I'm open to just about anything. I was thinking DBA or security. The school I'm thinking about going to has emphasis in GIS, Bus Intelligence and Health Information Systems. I'll prob go with HIS since I have some of the classes already done and it seems like something that might be "solid". GIS interests me, though.. but I feel like it may not be as lucrative/stable as HIS.

I'm so tired of this, every time I look into a major all I hear is doom and gloom about the future of it. I'm running out of ideas of things I can major in that I like, will be stable and land me a decent paying job in the future sometime.

However, I do realize that with IT, I'd probably have to start near the bottom and work my way up.

It makes me wonder if I should just keep my public safety job with its bad pay and the pension. At least it's stable.

[slit]

I'm open to just about anything. I was thinking DBA or security. The school I'm thinking about going to has emphasis in GIS, Bus Intelligence and Health Information Systems. I'll prob go with HIS since I have some of the classes already done and it seems like something that might be "solid". GIS interests me, though.. but I feel like it may not be as lucrative/stable as HIS. I'm so tired of this, every time I look into a major all I hear is doom and gloom about the future of it. I'm running out of ideas of things I can major in that I like, will be stable and land me a decent paying job in the future sometime. However, I do realize that with IT, I'd probably have to start near the bottom and work my way up. It makes me wonder if I should just keep my public safety job with its bad pay and the pension. At least it's stable.

Yeah I heard doom and gloom about everything too, no matter what major I was considering. You just need make a choice that you think is best. If you decide on an IT career there's one thing about IT that is constant, it's nothing stays the same anyway. What's true today could be false in a year.

[ElectricBlue187]

I'm open to just about anything. I was thinking DBA or security. The school I'm thinking about going to has emphasis in GIS, Bus Intelligence and Health Information Systems. I'll prob go with HIS since I have some of the classes already done and it seems like something that might be "solid". GIS interests me, though.. but I feel like it may not be as lucrative/stable as HIS. I'm so tired of this, every time I look into a major all I hear is doom and gloom about the future of it. I'm running out of ideas of things I can major in that I like, will be stable and land me a decent paying job in the future sometime. However, I do realize that with IT, I'd probably have to start near the bottom and work my way up. It makes me wonder if I should just keep my public safety job with its bad pay and the pension. At least it's stable.

GIS is okay as far as the job market goes. I think information systems in general will survive cloud computing a little better than general IT. Also, I doubt many IT managers are in a big hurry to make themselves redundant either.

[The Abominable Snowman]

I especially hate the word 'vendor'. It's like outsourcing has developed such a pejorative meaning that calling it a vendor makes it more palatable. Anyway I've seen the quality if work vendors do with our data. I don't really support it

Yep. The apps we use are already made by our outsourced team in India. Let me give you a quick anecdote about the website I work for:

When I first started working there, they mentioned that replacement ID cards would no longer be online. There was a huge message across the front of the site (This may be giving my company away) telling people to NOT LOSE THEIR ID CARDS. It lasted maybe a few weeks. And come to find out, it was a wise decision by the team in India to, and I quote, "cut back on support calls" because the functionality worked only 80% of the time and we got calls for the other 20% of the time.

Customers were livid. They never took the ID cards down, and reeled in the message. We ended the contract with that vendor among those complaints and the MANY, MANY MANY complaints about the site sucking. Switched to another vendor. There was no legal contract with the first vendor and it was ended hastily, so a couple guys from that vendor on our email list sent many angry emails to the rest of the team in semi-correct English. I was new and so confused, but happy at the time I was in the US.

This post is depressing considering I just graduated and I'm looking for a job in IT :(

I am almost done with my degree in Computer Engineering, was short funds for the 2 classes I had left, took a IT job in order to not have to go home. Thought it was the best decision of my life, until some weeks ago. Now I'm unsure...

[Zaptruder]

I don't really think he's being serious.

I know. But he's voicing the concerns of idiots that must be answered. I always figure with posts like that - even if *he* is trolling me, someone else reading this might be thinking it anyway.

[Shadow of the BEAST]

dey tuk our jrbs.

[A Human Becoming]

But companies don't care about that. Where they can save money and get similar job performances are a huge gain for companies like this.

And that's one reason why corporations are not people.

[Mairu]

Yep. The apps we use are already made by our outsourced team in India. Let me give you a quick anecdote about the website I work for: When I first started working there, they mentioned that replacement ID cards would no longer be online. There was a huge message across the front of the site (This may be giving my company away) telling people to NOT LOSE THEIR ID CARDS. It lasted maybe a few weeks. And come to find out, it was a wise decision by the team in India to, and I quote, "cut back on support calls" because the functionality worked only 80% of the time and we got calls for the other 20% of the time. Customers were livid. They never took the ID cards down, and reeled in the message. We ended the contract with that vendor among those complaints and the MANY, MANY MANY complaints about the site sucking. Switched to another vendor. There was no legal contract with the first vendor and it was ended hastily, so a couple guys from that vendor on our email list sent many angry emails to the rest of the team in semi-correct English. I was new and so confused, but happy at the time I was in the US. I am almost done with my degree in Computer Engineering, was short funds for the 2 classes I had left, took a IT job in order to not have to go home. Thought it was the best decision of my life, until some weeks ago. Now I'm unsure...

Hey, at least your degree is in something probably more marketable! I know when I was approaching the end that I kind of regretted not trying harder and going for an engineering or computer science degree. But I've got a second interview lined up with a non-profit organization to join their IT department, so maybe it's not all that bad.

[catfish]

stories like this scare me as I'm a sys admin and everyones talking about the cloud. time to start finding a job in this cloud place. anyone know where it is?

at least I have euro 'can't fire me' contract security, which makes me feel better about the mortgage, but I don't see as much outsourcing here in NL. Infact, Netherlands is short of IT people and I'm one of the foreign workforce. maybe you should look abroad OP. If you do it right you can get 30% of your income tax free in the Netherlands and also 5-6 weeks paid vacation per year. it's nice.

[ElectricBlue187]

stories like this scare me as I'm a sys admin and everyones talking about the cloud. time to start finding a job in this cloud place. anyone know where it is?.

Someplace called the Amazon

[FieryBalrog]

Except they don't save money, or maximize profits. The only thing it does is make their temporary accounting balance sheet look good for a quarter before the reality kicks them in their nuts and they dust it under the rug while looking for more things to generate buzz. Sending jobs off-shore is basically the cheap lazy maneuver to getting the market temporarily interested in your company because you're so shitty and clueless and out of ideas that you have to resort to a tried and tested method of excessive shittiness.

Nope, companies continue to do it because it works. This sort of feel good bullshit is made up by American workers to feel better about themselves "it doesn't work anyway! furriners can't work for shit! They'll all learn!" Meanwhile companies keep doing it

Basically outsourcing is this... Taking fine interconnective, interstitial industry knowledge - shredding it completely... and admiring the accounting balance for the FY ending, and forgetting about the rest of it (because the reality is it adds plenty of hidden costs that outweigh the accounting trick). You're not getting the same product or service when you outsource - you might as well replace actual chicken meat with MSP (mechanically seperated poultry, aka Pink Goo) and attempt to use/sell that product to your customers. No... that's not fair towards MSP - relative to outsourcing, that's still a quality meat based product, that's not actually destroying the need for chickens, but actually been more efficient about how they're used.

Yeah, talk about a superiority complex.

[USF]

It sounds like Office Space .. Burn the whole place down lol.

[Darkness]

I work in healthcare IT. I haven't been cut yet and should be ok for awhile at least, but I've seen tons let go or quit for other jobs in fear. Been dealing with it a year and a half. All the Indians I've worked with are fucking useless. I can train an American up to speed in a few weeks. Indian teams are still useless and constantly messing up over a year later. I don't see how it saves money, especially with business bailing out because of shitty service.

[Chumly]

Nope, companies continue to do it because it works. This sort of feel good bullshit is made up by American workers to feel better about themselves "it doesn't work anyway! furriners can't work for shit! They'll all learn!" Meanwhile companies keep doing it Yeah, talk about a superiority complex.

If it always worked then companies wouldn't be bringing the jobs back.

[nitewulf]

when you say IT, what do you mean? Infrastructure/Systems as in Operations? there are plenty of those jobs in the big cities because of financial service firms. Do you mean programming/engineering? those are also booming because of the tech start-ups...

[kiunchbb]

So sorry to heard that, right now I am supporting my parent and sister with a house mortgage. Just the thought of losing my job make me want to throw up. I work as auditor for the state government. In this economy I can't imagine finding another job that will pay the same cash, even if I willing to do overtime and sacrifice my benefits.

Company outsourcing jobs, our economy get worst, so more company outsource more jobs to keep the bottom line.

Hopefully you will find a better job soon, best luck to you.

[Zaptruder]

Nope, companies continue to do it because it works. This sort of feel good bullshit is made up by American workers to feel better about themselves "it doesn't work anyway! furriners can't work for shit! They'll all learn!" Meanwhile companies keep doing it Yeah, talk about a superiority complex.

If MSP were opinion or thought, it would still be superior to this.

I'm not saying that outsourcing *can't* work. I'm saying that it doesn't because the people that do it don't care about making things work, they care about temporary bottom lines that hide the true cost of their actions. And people like you (except in positions of greater power) are stupid enough to buy into the whole "of course it works - otherwise they wouldn't do it" line of thinking - without bothering to delve into the detail of the subject matter.

[Lord Error]

Nope, companies continue to do it because it works. This sort of feel good bullshit is made up by American workers to feel better about themselves "it doesn't work anyway! furriners can't work for shit! They'll all learn!" Meanwhile companies keep doing it.

No... his story matches rather well with what I've seen in many places. Some companies had to revert back to using local workforce when outsourcing it didn't work out. My company has been outsourcing some development here and there, and it's been universally terrible and wasteful. It always ends up better having someone even in junior position who can work right beside you and who you can correct the moment things start going wrong (and who'll understand the correction you're communicating to them).

[captive]

outsourcing != offshoring.

Also outsourcing isn't bad in of itself. I work at a company that outsourced their entire IT department to the company i work for. Half the IT department worked for company A that decided to outsource their IT department to company B. Every last IT employee at company A simply became an employee of company B but still shows up to work at company A every day.

[Mistouze]

A question to Ronito and other gaffers who know their stuff about IT :

What's the outlook outsourcing wise regarding SAN admin jobs? Knowing I come from supervision/front desk and the the company is willing to train me from not knowing much in terms of the tech I'm pretty pumped anyway.

[ronito]

A question to Ronito and other gaffers who know their stuff about IT : What's the outlook outsourcing wise regarding SAN admin jobs? Knowing I come from supervision/front desk and the the company is willing to train me from not knowing much in terms of the tech I'm pretty pumped anyway.

Depends. Outsourcing? Sorta high. Outsourcing to the cloud? Really high.
Now, if you can get in with a cloud company (rackspace, amazon, etc) you're set.
My advice always is, never say no to new knowledge.

[catfish]

A question to Ronito and other gaffers who know their stuff about IT : What's the outlook outsourcing wise regarding SAN admin jobs? Knowing I come from supervision/front desk and the the company is willing to train me from not knowing much in terms of the tech I'm pretty pumped anyway.

SAN is the 'new' way of server storage. shared storage is where it's all going, so this is not bad. get super familiar with this stuff.

The trick for most of us IT guys is going to be getting a job in the cloud. The cloud term is so fucking stupid, there's a bunch of small clouds everywhere. here at my office, we're building our own 'cloud'.

all this admin stuff isn't going away, it's just moving around, there isn't going to be one giant robot controlling all this stuff, there will still be domains, permissions, storage etc that need to be administered for years. It's just all moving towards being behind large seemingly impenetrable companies.

In the next 3-4 years I'm going to start approaching some of these companies looking for work I think.

[ronito]

It's just all moving towards being behind large seemingly impenetrable companies.

I'll admit Amazon web services is guilty of this 'impenetrable' image.

But rackspace is really awesome and open. I'd highly recommend them to anyone looking for a place to work. Damned impressive company.

[catfish]

also, OP title kind of bothers me.

There's quite a big difference between

'My job is outsourcing'
and
'My job is being outsourced'

[FieryBalrog]

If it always worked then companies wouldn't be bringing the jobs back.

I didn't say it ALWAYS works. It's like any other business move, has its positives and negatives and depends on the implementation. It's the rah-rah feel good shit that I object to.

[norinrad]

Why are american jobs more important than uruguayans?

I'm not American nor do i live in America, but will the people in Uruguay being using that money to shop in America or will they be spending it in America? Americans losing their jobs would mean local businesses are also going out of business unless you are Apple.

[MidnightScott]

The economy will surely get better if we outsource all our jobs to other countries.

[The Abominable Snowman]

also, OP title kind of bothers me. There's quite a big difference between 'My job is outsourcing' and 'My job is being outsourced'

I was actually at work on the phone with a customer (New York Hospital) when I made it. I changed the topic title about 10 times when I was typing it and cant edit the title now. Sorry :/

and RE: Outsourcing and offshoring, you're right. my old job was actually an outsourced position.

[Waikis]

Is there such areas in IT?

IT consulting.

[magenta]

I will finish my IT degree at the end of the year. This thread depresses me, guess I will have to tread lightly when following my career path.

[Mistouze]

Depends. Outsourcing? Sorta high. Outsourcing to the cloud? Really high. Now, if you can get in with a cloud company (rackspace, amazon, etc) you're set. My advice always is, never say no to new knowledge.

I'm not too worried anyway with my company being the IT division of a company that dabbles in defense. So there's stuff that will never be outsourced but still I don't want to get blindsided.

As for welcoming new knowledge, that's the spirit. From my first week of training all I can say is that this shit is pretty cool. Setting up fabrics is awesome, a bit overwhelming but awesome :D

SAN is the 'new' way of server storage. shared storage is where it's all going, so this is not bad. get super familiar with this stuff. The trick for most of us IT guys is going to be getting a job in the cloud. The cloud term is so fucking stupid, there's a bunch of small clouds everywhere. here at my office, we're building our own 'cloud'. all this admin stuff isn't going away, it's just moving around, there isn't going to be one giant robot controlling all this stuff, there will still be domains, permissions, storage etc that need to be administered for years. It's just all moving towards being behind large seemingly impenetrable companies. In the next 3-4 years I'm going to start approaching some of these companies looking for work I think.

Yeah, accessing a SAN bay at the other end of the world isn't going to work for everything anyway. I have 2-3 years to become a bad-ass SAN admin and then I'll see what options there is for me if my company doesn't want to step up salary-wise :D Feels weird for me to make long terms plans like that, I must be finally becoming an adult lawl.

I will finish my IT degree at the end of the year. This thread depresses me, guess I will have to tread lightly when following my career path.

Shit doens't seem *that* bad, it's just that being able to understand english through an east-asian accent is a valuable skill.