My (American) company is opening R&D efforts in India.
Posted by Joose-@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 239 comments
I hope this title/post isn’t taken the wrong way, but we all know that there are a ton of talented engineers in India that can be hired for relatively low cost. Our new CTO has enacted a hiring freeze, and just announced that we’ll be opening R&D efforts in India, and I’m concerned what this might mean for the safety of my job. For context, our engineering team is roughly 200 people, made up of SE1-4s, and some Seniors. I am an SE2 and has been here about a year.
For anyone who has worked at a company that has gone through something similar, I guess my questions are:
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How long after “opening R&D efforts” might it take until the new engineers are actually hired?
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Is it more likely that they will be brought in to replace people, or to supplement what we already have?
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If people are replaced, which people are most likely to be replaced? Will it be performance based, salary based? A mix of both?
local-person-nc@reddit
Is your new CTO Indian by any chance?
Joose-@reddit (OP)
He is
jxthedev@reddit
Soon, the entire company staff will be replaced
EmeraldCrusher@reddit
Let him know how you feel about destroying the culture of your company. Direct confrontation for these individuals is hell. Your job is gone, you have nothing to lose by showing genuine disaproval.
znick5@reddit
Lmao these guys don’t give a shit and direct confrontation is not a problem for them. Company I was at was acquired by private equity. I got out early and the relatively new CTO scheduled an exit interview with me. Dude joined the call munching on a sandwich. I laid out all the problems, asked if he was aware of the sentiment among his team. He said “yeah it’s something we will have to work on” and ended the call. He didn’t give a single fuck. That company went on to continue outsourcing and the CTO has bragged on LinkedIn multiple times about how many Indian, South American, and African devs they have hired.
It’s really useless trying to fight it. Just keep jumping ship when it happens until there’s no more ships left.
Solrax@reddit
Seriously, start looking now. Get out now or suffer the further indignity of having to train your replacements if you want to collect severance. Good luck!
detroitsongbird@reddit
That happened to me!!! It sucks.
Solrax@reddit
Yeah, I was part of the mass layoffs before they (Private Equity demons) announced the move to India, but the people who remained are now also being laid off, and are training their replacements. I hope they are doing a very bad job of it, just good enough to get their severance!
detroitsongbird@reddit
Same. Private equity. Of course to get the severance there’s an NDA for not disparaging the company on social media, otherwise pay the severance back.
Solrax@reddit
Yes, I had similar NDA. That actually worked out well for me, because my state unemployment office didn't regard the money (small as it was) as normal severance because I had to sign the agreement, so I didn't have to wait to file for unemployment.
detroitsongbird@reddit
You have one year at most.
DapperCam@reddit
Idk, with 200 developers might take 2 years
canadian_webdev@reddit
As us millenials say, gg.
DigmonsDrill@reddit
Game over.
SpaceGerbil@reddit
R.I.P.
plokman@reddit
Yeah, you're gone =/
local-person-nc@reddit
Classic 👌
jxthedev@reddit
Soon, the entire company staff will be replaced
TrainingBit3029@reddit
LMFAO
ButteryMales2@reddit
Ding ding.
I don’t know how anyone remains surprised by this.
LogicalPerformer7637@reddit
I feel for you. There are good and bad developers in India, I work with both types. But the work culture clash is something which will be worst. It is common (at least in my team) that the India developers say everything is done although it is not just to look good. And then, there is a ton of bugs because it was not implemented at all.
Sea_Swordfish939@reddit
They LIE its a big cultural problem. The smarter ones LIE by omission. Individuals ICs from india can absolutely kick major ass, but the the moment you are dealing with teams and managers its not worth it.
Willbo@reddit
Dude the omission part is a huge issue.
As an American, I have trouble keeping my fat mouth shut about the technical issues I've spotted, gaps, complexity, constraints, best practices, and exploring the mitigations for them - but at the end of the conversation we all learn something new and the company becomes more robust and innovative because of it. I've trained 20+ people to become experts on different complex subjects now and openly share knowledge.
For our India counterparts though, it's a very different story. It's like getting onto a Disneyland ride, their animatronics come to life, and they start singing "It's a small world after all!" - It's a fairy tale with only rosy pictures and paintings. Issues get brushed under, information is suppressed, best case complexity mindset, everything is yes, simple, easy, but then they spend most of their time in the worst outages with band aid fixes and workarounds. They are happy in this bubble away from management where they can work on things they care about, often reoccurring issues.
Managers are also fine with this because who doesn't like rosy pictures on a Disney ride, but eventually the doors open and you have to get off the ride. Combined with the language barrier, timezone difference, and lack of observability into technical work, once you get off the ride you are now trying to solve symptoms of an issue that have bubbled under the surface into large monsters and have now become multi-year endeavors rather than multi-week fixes.
csthrowawayguy1@reddit
Yeah this. Reminds me of the kids who would throw out their tests they got bad scores on so their parents wouldn’t see. Everything seems fine… until the end of quarter grades come out. By then it’s too late.
Specialist-Ninja2804@reddit
As someone working in India on a German SAP project, I want to clarify that there are good and bad developers everywhere, even within my own team!
However, most issues arise in teams where the actual developer responsible for implementing the solution is not included in the requirement-gathering calls with the client’s point of contact. The requirements then go through a game of “Chinese whispers,” getting distorted with technical suggestions and vague statements along the way.
Worse, the resulting work often does not match the quality the client is paying for. While it’s true there are some “bluffmaster” developers in the Indian IT industry, there are also many skilled developers who never get direct access to the client to gather requirements. This disconnect is a major reason why many developers don’t understand the ‘why’ behind the solutions they’re asked to deliver
IamBlade@reddit
I'm an Indian developer and this is absolutely true. My team was stuck in hell because no one competent in the technical implementation was talking to the client and the project manager had to rush me on-site to remove the clogs. Some managers just don't know the stuff and will never admit to it. They sit in between and do nothing.
Cahnis@reddit
Which is part of "indian culture" problem. You guys can be individually competent, but the moment you get an Indian team, there is a high chance of bringing the corrosive culture.
And I feel you guys, because your are often "paid as little as humanly possible" there is a huge "you get that you pay for" effect. And people judge you by the overall trend without considering the low ticket.
I myself am a brazillian nearshore contractor. I get some of your pains, but maaaaan it is such a PITA on average dealing with indian teams. It is not only an american or european only opinion.
obscure-reality@reddit
It's not fair to call it the "Indian Culture" problem, I agree with the context of your opinion but the words you use also matter and are generally a much bigger reason for the racism and stereotypes Indian developers or people in general have to face.
It's a "greed" problem - when businesses want to pay less and get more. I mean, you will have to face PITA devs when you pay 1/4th of the price.
On top of that majority of the big Indian Consultancy firms/managers are out right scammers, they'll try to fit in someone junior or irrelevant for most overseas job - it is a problem. But it's again "you get that you pay for", like you said.
There are good developers in India. Not genius but just good enough, but they usually will charge more and won't be the first ones to be picked.
kaladin_stormchest@reddit
Ehh some indian managers can be great. I've had a 1/3 success rate so far
dweezil22@reddit
It's easy to mix up cultural clashes with racism, so I want to be very clear and careful here. As stated above, the thing that really blew me away once I started working with Director level leaders in India was telling verifiable lies. To give a concrete example, I once had a great in-house dev in India working full-time on project A, call her X. I needed to staff a dev for a different new project, and I was handed the X's resume as "ready to start work" on project B.
It was just... a straight up a lie. Told to a different leader working for the same direct company. The kind of utter trust buster that would typically cripple or end a career if done in the US (or, I think/hope, most of the world!). At that moment a bunch of other sketchy stuff that had happened over the years with other India-based offshore teams came together as "Oh... this is the base state". What I thought were a series of unlucky crazy coincidences were just ambient. And it's expensive to live in a world devoid of trust.
Disclaimer: It's been a few years since I've dealt with India based offshore teams, and I know salaries have gone up considerably. Top devs in India can easily make $50K USD/yr. FAANG devs are well over $100K/yr. At those prices I would double check my existing negative assumptions.
kaladin_stormchest@reddit
I absolutely hear you there. What you're saying is not racist it's just the rotten culture a lot of teams here have.
I'm lucky enough that my team is great and there's a high degree of trust there but whenever I'm collborating with another team, minutes of meeting sent over email are an absolute must. Why? Because I've seen people backtrack, lie or just misrepresent whatever was decided upon.
I don't have nearly as much experience as you do but I do see the culture you're talking about.
This culture is more apparent in service based orgs - tcs and the likes. In product based orgs, the pay is higher and you're likely responsible for more critical systems and in my experience with higher pay comes more accountability, ownership and honest communication.
I truly appreciate the sensitivity with which you approached the topic, but really you don't have to walk on eggshells imo. Making observations isn't racist
dweezil22@reddit
Eh, I've seen enough disgusting racism on Teamblind that I'm more than happy to be clear. It's a small price to pay to avoid giving those assholes more ammo.
Frodolas@reddit
Don’t go on blind but I’ve seen such a disgusting amount of racism around this topic here on Reddit, on CSCQ. I appreciate you keeping your observations specific and objective.
Pleasant_Fennel_5573@reddit
My team had one contract employee who was completing a number of complex stories and demoing his work every sprint, so nobody worried about how he was doing it.
When someone finally looked at his code, he had just hard coded the data that he wanted to display to “prove” that his features worked rather than actually building the functionality to return the relevant data.
LogicalPerformer7637@reddit
Omg. What did QA? No one really noticed?
Prize_Response6300@reddit
That’s been my experience with Indian developers. Just a whole lot of bs and lying constantly. They always run around like headless chickens the moment they have a task that’s not just junior level begging for help.
EmeraldCrusher@reddit
I worked with some seriously incompetent people who were H1B's who have been promoted time and time again, now they work at Oracle and I'm bewildered how. When I worked with them before, they couldn't even figure out how to build an basic REST API. I'm confused how these people keep getting ahead despite having no skills.
PM_Gonewild@reddit
Nepotism bro, they are notorious for promoting each other when they suck ass.
Prize_Response6300@reddit
Oracle is an h1b shop at this point. We had their consultants come in for a massive integration and 10/10 we’re Indian
the_fresh_cucumber@reddit
Main issue is if you need to ask them for assistance on something they worked on - you never get a response unless you go through their manager.
canadian_webdev@reddit
I've worked with a team out of India exactly one time, and this is the exact experience I had.
What a nightmare.
local-person-nc@reddit
There are good and bad but it's common to be bad? Just say bad.
LogicalPerformer7637@reddit
I need to admit the bad ones are majority. But it would not be correct to not mention the good ones. The issue is in hiring process in my opinion. It is common to accept almoyt everyone who heard about programming.
Dodging12@reddit
The tiptoeing around on this topic is always humorous.
red4scare@reddit
That only happens if you pay peanuts and thus get monkeys fresh out of university that are pressured by their local managers to never say anything negative to you.
The good indian engineers dont lie. Yes, it may take a bit for them to trust you and tell you things upfront without hesitation but they wont lie to your face neither. Source: 6 years working with good Indian engineers.
BeansAndBelly@reddit
If the work turns out to require coordination with someone else, it will just sit there because the lead should coordinate even though the issue wasn’t surfaced
m1nkeh@reddit
Yep, this is quite accurate.
Only after they e actually worked/studied outside of India do they start to realise this is a bad idea.
SettingSmooth2187@reddit
Does your company start with an F and end in T if so I think we work for the same company and I'm also concerned lol
Joose-@reddit (OP)
I am Accounting on that being the case as well…
SettingSmooth2187@reddit
Lmao yup 😉
Organic_Battle_597@reddit
My current company has been trying to offshore for more than 10 years. It has never really taken off because the company hires in India to save money -- to them, they are buying software developers for 1/6 the cost in India. Except that a good engineer costs $$ anywhere in the world, and if you insist on paying 1/6 US wages then you end up with a lot of useless freshers who don't stick around long unless they're too incompetent to land a better paying gig.
The latest effort was to contract with Genpact and move all the Indian employees to them. It's been exactly as successful as you'd expect.
I'm not especially worried about my job, at least not until senior management figures out that they have to pay a little better even overseas. Given they're a bunch of penny-pinching assholes under the thumb of private equity, this seems unlikely. But I wouldn't cry if they did lay me off at this point, I'm ready to leave for some place somewhat more competent and pleasant, anyway.
savetinymita@reddit
Jesus christ, Genpact is the worst of the worst. Any executive in charge of that should be out on their ass.
Organic_Battle_597@reddit
Agreed. I had never even heard of Genpact but they must be well known at least in India, because well over half of our Indian employees walked out the door immediately rather than accept the transfer of their employment over to Genpact. Not exactly a vote of confidence. Genpacts performance since then has been absolutely abysmal, a colossal disaster.
savetinymita@reddit
Stick around as a spy and document everything. Sue the company for racial and national origin discrimination. Don't sign the severance and don't train anyone.
couchjitsu@reddit
There's a few different ways this can happen. At the company I was at, they started with contractors in India to get up and running ASAP while they looked to hire FTE. I can't remember what the standard notice is in India but it was much longer than the 2 weeks in the US. So the gap between making an offer to an FTE and them starting was something like 6-8 weeks (or possibly longer). So that gives you some guidelines. New folks could show up as soon as next week, or as long as September.
In my experience it will start as a supplement but will ultimately replace people. For us, it was replacing US and European contractors with Indian FTEs because they were still cheaper. Then it was sending non-revenue generating teams to India (internal tooling, or platform teams, etc).
In my experience it was typically whole teams. But then after that wave we were encouraged to look at every backfill to see if it could be done in India. For example, if I had a P4 backfill in the US that could be $140-160k. And I'd be strongly encouraged to consider 2 P4s in India as a replacement (because that was still much cheaper).
One other thing I saw as execs encouraging a hybrid team. So a team that has both US and Indian employees. It was done poorly where I was at, because there were then 2 managers on that team (and what successful team doesn't have 2 managers?). And when layoffs came it was very easy to just axe the US based team because by that time, the India team was up-to-speed.
When they opened up our India office it was originally going to just be engineers (and then it grew to have product, marketing, recruiting, everything). It was also promised we wouldn't have "split geographies" where a team was co-located in US and India. And it was promised that managers would not be requested to backfill in India.
For us, all of that proved to be untrue.
We were also encouraged to consider the success of India as critical to the success of the company. That part was true. But, for us, it came at the expense of US employees. But that wasn't surprising because a company's success almost never has anything to do with the success of individual employees.
Surprisingly, despite all the hype and benefits promised, 100% of our C-Suite remained in the US.
ALL of what I said was based on about 2 years at one company. It's possible this was just my experience.
BahnMe@reddit
This is the exact model that big consulting firms all recommend and eventually migrate midsize or large companies to.
It’s the standard playbook and won’t change until the law changes.
RogueJello@reddit
What law is going to prevent this from happening?
diggerydootwo@reddit
You create a minimum tax for all companies operating within the US market. Something like 20% of all revenue from the US and the ONLY deduction allowed on that tax is US based employees.
Fixed immediately with something like that. That prevents companies from just licensing all their profits to an oversees entity and it works equally for US companies as foreign ones. If you want access to the US market then you must pay the tax and again only allowed deduction at all for that tax is US based employee salaries.
Solves the AI problem and the offshoring problem. We the people demand payment for access to US and our market. Easy if people would just be a single voter issue on just this one issue.
savetinymita@reddit
No, no taxes. Just ban it outright.
BahnMe@reddit
IT should also be tied to QTY of employees so it's not just all concentrated to executive compensation.
vert1s@reddit
You can say non executive/officer compensation
diggerydootwo@reddit
Great call. Just cap the deduction at something high but not obscene like 500k per employee indexed to inflation so it’s future proofed.
And again, companies are certainly free to offshore or replace everyone with technology but then we recapture a percent of the economic activity and redistribute it back to the people. Long term this could turn into funding for UBI if we really do end up in a situation where all the jobs dwindle away and it would keep the economy going because people would have money to consume things and grow economic activity.
FrickenHamster@reddit
If the difference between US headcount and india was only 20%, much less companies would even consider outsourcing. The numbers I hear quoted go as low as 1/4 US resource. Taxes also wouldn't really affect the execs pushing offshore resources, when they are getting kickbacks in some form and likely wouldn't even stay long enough at the company to care about it's future.
ep1032@reddit
Right? The crazy thing is you could market this as a labor tariff, and it would even fit with his public political agenda... but no, no word of something like this in sight.
reddetacc@reddit
You can tax them the difference between the market rate for that job locally and the salary they’re paying the Indian. So they can still hire them, but they cost the same money
BahnMe@reddit
Nice try lobbyist!
Jmc_da_boss@reddit
The playbook is always the same, i wish the current admin would turn their eye to these practices instead of building random jails in a swamp.
casey-primozic@reddit
Because us idiots refuse to organize. If we had an organized tech union, we'd have one of the most powerful lobbying groups in history because of our earning power. It's all about buying influence.
savetinymita@reddit
You need a political party, not a union. You literally can't stop it without the law.
Sneet1@reddit
The venn diagram of the type of people in the active admin and the type of people who willingly guide companies through this is a complete circle. Most likely some these MBAs have directly done it themselves
You'll notice all browbeating about immigration covers that the number of H1Bs goes up. Its about exploitation through and through
jaqen_hagar_1@reddit
But this would entail actually helping people and the current admin is absolutely opposed to that.
reboog711@reddit
I can't wait to hear executives talk about creating a hybrid team across countries and time zones; while also pushing RTO, beacuse that is the only way to collaborate.
LogicalPerformer7637@reddit
I colaborate across multiple continents (US, GB, Europe countries, India) and still RTO is must have. When I questioned it, the answer was that it is mandatory without any further justification. :(
potato-cheesy-beans@reddit
Literally declined a job offer with a large multinational last year because they had a global RTO mandate.
xmBQWugdxjaA@reddit
RTO to spend all day looking for free rooms and booths to do video calls in... so efficient!
couchjitsu@reddit
Had a friend that lived within an hour of the office so he had to RTO for a week once a month (or maybe it wasn't that often). Problem was, 100% of their team lived out of state. So they came in to the office and spent 8 hours in a conference room on zoom. Basically the exact as at home, but just less comfortable
Ch3t@reddit
We had a manager threaten RTO because someone didn't have their camera enabled in a meeting. I have a 20 minute commute. The guy making the threat lives 800 miles from the office. You first, asshole.
tcpukl@reddit
What is RTO?
I've been at a UK studio helping a US studio, but never heard of that
tach@reddit
Return To Office
tcpukl@reddit
Oh, of course. Yeah we're still all hybrid.
SnakeSeer@reddit
It's happening at my company. Everyone's pretty pissed.
onafoggynight@reddit
The key take away here is hard to swallow for some people. If a company decides to go down this path, it has shown to not be interested in your well being. People might be tempted to go along out of a sense of duty, companionship, etc.
But this is a moment to be selfish -- do not do more than the bare minimum during such a transition. The sooner management sees the foolishness of auch an undertaking, the better.
o_x_i_f_y@reddit
This is the best answer.
Only non revenue generating teams are outsourced.
Anything which brings in money is not touched.
couchjitsu@reddit
It started with non-revenue teams but it ended up with revenue generating teams.
Solrax@reddit
Untrue. Not if upper management has the idea that they can keep the money coming in with lower costs. Especially if they are sold the idea that developers are developers and expertise can be quickly transferred. By the time it goes to shit they've got their stock and bonuses. This is not at all uncommon.
mregecko@reddit
100% spot on with my experience. You could have worked at the company I just left, lol.
Ironically, a month after I left, they fired the rest of my team and are currently looking to hire 3 engineers in India to replace.
beauzero@reddit
Put your resume out there and start the process. As a dev of 30 years that has been up and down the chain. You should try to interview at least once a year even if you aren't actively looking.
superluminary@reddit
ABV. Always be interviewing!
Perezident14@reddit
What’s the V stand for?
Ashamed-Astronaut779@reddit
ABV is a TLA for Alcohol by Volume.
Good Luck 🫶
sciences_bitch@reddit
interViewing
monox60@reddit
ACG!
ThAt's exaCtly riGht.
superluminary@reddit
Indeed
Bderken@reddit
LinkedIn
canadian_webdev@reddit
Geocities
MathmoKiwi@reddit
BBS
MelAlton@reddit
Walking into they company's HQ, handing them your resume and getting a job because you have your high school diploma. Because you are a trainee, the company puts you into a 3-month initial training program, then you'll be given a series of jobs to learn the various aspects of the company and gain experience. At age 30 you're made VP of Operations.
tcpukl@reddit
Wow I feel old.
gdinProgramator@reddit
Vibecoding
EMCoupling@reddit
If you have to ask, you can't afford it
handmetheamulet@reddit
Vibe coding
poi88@reddit
'cause is Very important! I will show myself out. Sorry
YetMoreSpaceDust@reddit
Vendetta
Empanatacion@reddit
Volume.
Broomstick73@reddit
Always be’sing and do’sing and never cheesing and choosing!
trippypantsforlife@reddit
ABI! Turns out, it doesn't stand for application binary interface 🤷♀️
thepurpleproject@reddit
So you just interview and drop?
beauzero@reddit
No. An interview should be you finding out if you want a position and finding out if you are a good fit. Not just a company seeing if they want you. If you are only looking for a job during times of desperation then you probably will take something just to pay the bills. Seek a job you want and an employer that actually wants you...not just a body to produce widgets. You can only do that by constantly looking and evaluating. It allows you to negotiate from a safe place (you have a job and your bills are paid) vs having to take the first offer.
JaySocials671@reddit
Can you share some of your experience fed up and down the chain
eggn00dles@reddit
ok but is the current interview loop still leetcode plus system design? or is it more about what you get from AI tools?
Background-Rub-3017@reddit
Once a month
gumol@reddit
interview once a month? I don't have the energy to do it.
Joose-@reddit (OP)
That’s great advice, thanks!
McN697@reddit
India is a huge country with engineers spanning the full spectrum of competence and compensation. You can find top talent there is you are willing to pay. Most companies don’t want to pay. If your company is PE owned, you can ask around/gpt/google how the playbook usually goes.
So assuming your company is laser focused on costs (as most are):
1) ramp up depends on the level of technical excellence you need. Also depends on whether there’s talent aligned to your stack in the city where the office is. The three month notice period is bullshit on both sides so expect that to get in the way. Expect that it could take a year to staff a team over there.
2) replace. Unless your company is scaling like crazy, at some point, there will be a layoff to shift permanently to India.
3) people getting replaced will depend on how India goes. Maybe you ax the most junior engineers first. After all, juniors are usually there to groom the next generation of seniors and that’s unnecessary when staffing offshore. If a team can completely shift there, that team can be decimated.
Ultimately, be a mercenary. Keep the Leetcode sharp and never stop making side projects.
ad_irato@reddit
This is the closest to reality in my opinion. I am pretty sure you can get top talent in India for 100k (senior level) but companies look for 10k hire and get 5 of them which is obviously stupid. Since the Indian salaries for top talent is nearing the European levels they are moving to cheaper alternatives from what I heard.
Jmc_da_boss@reddit
Is the new CTO Indian? Perchance he is also FROM the region that this new R&D center is opening?
NorCalAthlete@reddit
Or if not from the region, had family members there (which is far more time consuming to track down). Or their wife’s family member is there. Etc.
enhaluanoi@reddit
This is the playbook that I’ve seen/heard of at least 4 times now. Indian CTO is the kiss of death for any engineers. It will not get better, they will just continuously cut/push people out and only hire from India.
RagnarLobrek@reddit
This and ex Amazon management. I don’t care how nice they are, they bring a level of toxicity that’s unmatched every time.
wutcnbrowndo4u@reddit
Lol man I was at Meta briefly and had an absolute psycho of a manager, first time in my life I can say that. He was ex-Amazon
RagnarLobrek@reddit
I believe it. Mine is the reason I look up my hiring manager and try to find his boss before accepting a role
finicu@reddit
What red flags are you looking for exactly and how do you find his boss?
Global_Rooster8561@reddit
Let me share my experience: Indian director gets in the chair, suddenly some outside Indian team pops up and doing something (yes, “something”, we never understood what the hell were they doing) in the monorepo just aside of rest of the code, they never left the boundaries of the monorepo, their stories was nowhere close to be described, on the meetings with them I had a feeling that they also did not understand what they are doing.
Many months later suddenly it reveals that everyone in this team is a contractor hired from the company that belongs to the director’s brother in law. Guy for fired, the team is locked out in the same day. Few weeks later all their code got removed without any damage or change whatsoever.
lardsack@reddit
you're going to be replaced by indians and should start looking for a new position while you are still employed
selflessGene@reddit
I really can't believe we're letting this happen again. The US hollowed out our manufacturing base, and now we're doing it to our software engineering base, which is one of last remaining non-credentialed high paying careers.
20 years from now after American founded tech firms have hit many quarters of record profits, the pundits will be hand wringing about how the tech industry in America is a shell of its former self, and what we can do to fix it.
The ruling class have forgotten that the goal of a government is to look out for it's citizens not it's corporations.
I'm not really political but I'd be tempted to organize around this if there was a real groundswell of support. First priority: Implement a corporate tax on companies over $50M revenue that hire software contractors or full-time employees overseas.
BTW, I got banned from /r/Layoffs for pointing this out, because criticizing Indian outsourcing (great engineers, great people) was racist.
pigtrickster@reddit
Respectfully disagree. (this is off-topic)
The US is a capitalistic country, not a socialist country.
Capitalist means that we make decisions based on money, not people.
If you want this to change then you want a country where people are more important than money. Which I personally agree with but the country does not.
Haunting_Witness402@reddit
We are both. Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.
livefromheaven@reddit
The US is whatever we vote for 🤷♂️
Haunting_Witness402@reddit
You’re right, but the bigger issue is that it’s legal to bribe politicians in the US. Until we get money out of politics we will never see any real lasting change happen organically from the ruling class because they aren’t inviting me to their golf games.
As a Side, im a Little confused how being against globalization/offshoring is racist when we saw firsthand how detrimental that was to our supply chains during Covid? Did people forget that fast?
BeyondFun4604@reddit
Are you native american ?
xabrol@reddit
I work in consulting and I have seen hundreds of companies across my career try to outsource to India from the United States.
And in no single instance has it ever worked. It works when people from India are getting Visa cards and coming over to the United States and actually working here that works fine because some of them are talented.
But when they are in India and you are in the USA it just doesn't work. It is extremely rare to have a team that understands English very well and they start camaraderie on their side and there's a communication wall and you really have no idea that they even understand what you're saying or vice versa.
On top of that there's a huge time zone issue where you end up with these employees that are asleep for almost the entire duration your business is open and vice versa.
It just doesn't work and I've never seen it work.
I would say that the consulting company I work for in large part makes its bread and butter by going in and saving code bases where companies tried this and it failed.
What does work is using Mexico or Costa Rica which isn't as cheap but they tend to speak better English because English and Spanish have easier learning gaps and the time zones are way better.
dogo_fren@reddit
What are you talking about? English is one of the official languages of India. Maybe the projects failed because Americans cannot comprehend that ourside of the US things are done differently? My friend’s US boss cannot understand that there are multi-week paid vacations and public holidays in Europe.
Iregularlogic@reddit
Yeah exactly - all Americans truly believe that English is the only spoken language in the entire world, and can’t understand the idea of a vacation. Once I told an American that I took a week off of work and he hit his head with a hammer 7 times, his eyes bulged out of his head, and he jumped out of a seven storey building before running home over the sunset.
I, of course, simply laughed at the stupid American making 180K USD a year at his 35 hour workweek, finished coding the newest addition to our web app (we want to ask our users 3 times if they’re okay with cookies), took my weekly paycheque for my 29K€ a year job, and joined a protest.
dogo_fren@reddit
Thanks for proving my point!
xabrol@reddit
It's just not my experience to see it work. Likely because most companies look for the cheapest offers they can find and don't want to spend any money and it's usually because the American companies failed to manage the project or set up anything that could work with remote consulting not specifically because India is bad or anything like that that's not what I'm saying .
I'm not trying to blame India I'm just saying that most American companies are equipped to allow this to successfully work.
waa_woo@reddit
Are you saying Microsoft, Google and Amazon don't work? Their employee base in India is in tens of thousands.
anor_wondo@reddit
The absurdity in this comment is insane lol.
xabrol@reddit
Thanks for the constructive feedback.
anor_wondo@reddit
You're welcome. Looking at costa rica swe salaries and wondering how these companies could act surprised if they hired cheaper from India and didn't get what they expected
MarimbaMan07@reddit
Empero6@reddit
Lowkey racism in the comments here.
Calm_Personality3732@reddit
you dont see any of these indian IT companies contributing to open source. i
Empero6@reddit
It took me two seconds to google open source projects from Indian IT companies.
Frodo478@reddit
Now we start understanding why there was such a big push on going remote. One of my prev company slowly lay off put the entire dev team in the country, keeping only employees overseas from India and Russia.
ennova2005@reddit
Fyi for your executive team: Foreign R&D costs which includes most of software development is now not excludable from US Taxes as an expense in the year incurred. It has to be amortized over 15 years (actually 17 due to half year conventions) so the cost of foreign devs went up almost 20 percent for practical purposes since tax year 2022.
Many US companies are surprised by this.
The economics may still work out all things being equal (skill parity)
Hiring in India isnt particularly easy either for R&D and it may take upto a year for a functional team to be assembled.
liquidpele@reddit
Depends on what company they go with over there... there are various levels, but most of them are shit because people go over there specifically to hire cheap so that's what they get.
It's always to replace... they may do layoffs or they might just let people quit over time and only backfill in the India office. Both ways suck because you have to deal with the India office.
They'll keep the more experienced usually, but ask them to then manage and train the India team which will make them hate their lives to the point of quitting.
NoleMercy05@reddit
Toast
BurritoWithFries@reddit
My company did the same thing but in Europe. A few months later they laid off entire teams in R&D and announced the same day that they would be re-hiring for the teams in Europe because the talent was cheaper. Now most attrition is being backfilled in Europe too. Pretty much every open internal opportunity is in Europe as well. I've been heavily interviewing since the layoffs because I don't really see a future for myself at my company anymore
SableSnail@reddit
As a Europoor, I'm surprised.
While our wages are much lower than the US (and net wages even lower still), the cost to the business is still pretty high due to the high payroll taxes and cost of regulations (no at-will employment etc.)
So usually the offshoring isn't as worthwhile vs. somewhere like India. I imagine Latin America will have an advantage in the future too due to being both cheap and in the same timezone as the US.
BurritoWithFries@reddit
My company had India and Latam in the running for the most recent office, but they eliminated India due to timezone difference & Latam due to lack of a talent pipeline 😂
the_fresh_cucumber@reddit
It's an odd decision to me too.
The strongest R&D teams I worked with were always in Europe. And they were not expensive like Americans.
Maybe it's a labor law thing?
TONYBOY0924@reddit
Indian are taking over this sector…
mechkbfan@reddit
Only one experience here and it was not positive
Crazy-Willingness951@reddit
Your job is at risk.
Plan on starting your work day very early in the morning as the India people are finishing theirs. Expect to train and supervise people remotely. Be very careful about who you bring on, there is a huge variation in people's ability. I saw competent contractors start work then substitute incompetent people who were awful.
Management's goal is to reduce the cost of software, and if they can find someone who will do your job for less money you will get laid off. For some Indian developers this will be a great opportunity and they will work 16 hrs. a day to succeed. It's a global competition,
Southern-Reveal5111@reddit
We went through the same situation, it was an eastern european country instead of India.
Initially, they said it was temporary (three years ago) and that we would start hiring once the market improved. The market improved, and we started to increase our market share. Now, they claim, they would only open new management positions, and developers would likely always be hired at a cheaper location, because they saw great cost savings and no impact on quality.
Some of the older colleagues took management jobs, and the remaining developers had to work more to fill up the void. I am not questioning the quality of developers, it was never suitable for us because we rarely met in office and some of the things were extremely difficult to handle online.
They stopped hiring completely and the team size shrank. They did not fire anyone, but they were pretty clear about not promoting anyone in our location.
For us, it took around 2 years. They hired people with relevant experience, took knowledge transfer, and built a team with around 70% straight out of university. Some of us had annual goals set to train them.
No, some roles like software architect, team leads have completely moved to that location. The responsible person either left the company or moved to other projects.
They picked the area which need immediate attention.
mint-parfait@reddit
it's like these companies didn't learn the first time eng was heavily outsourced to india, when they had to reverse after awhile and do heavy onshore hiring to fix the dumpster fires they ended up with
dudeaciously@reddit
This is why I veered away from coding early in my career. Went to data architecture, and system architecture. The outsourcing spectre keeps looming. The cost is that I am a strong architect, medium coder. And I have to still dance fast to stay up to date.
SquiffSquiff@reddit
commenting so that I can find this post again after it is mysteriously deleted for 'racism'
fried_green_baloney@reddit
The best results for offshoring are opening an R & D center and paying good money - which can easily approach US$100K per developer for really good ones.
Dakadoodle@reddit
Put ur resume out there. Dont train them.
AbbreviationsAny706@reddit
Writing's on the wall, OP. It's time to start interviewing. You'll have to be damned good to score a new job in this market though. No good will come from this situation for you, but you might be able to play the game long enough to make it out "alive".
u/couchjitsu said it more eloquently than me, I agree with all their points, but let me paint a picture of what could happen, because I've lived it:
Before long, you'll be waking up earlier for meetings with them to accommodate timezone differences. Starting at 10AM? Expect to start at 8 or earlier. The biggest ass-kissing colleagues around you will work late and show up even earlier to accommodate them, not realizing they are digging their own grave.
Fear and worry for your job will increase.
Eventually, your own manager or team lead may be replaced by someone from IST (India Standard Time).
Once your own manager is from IST, good luck. You'll be in Hell.
If you even make it that far, you'll regret having stayed.
Oh, and the fact that hiring is frozen and they're opening R&D in India? Gradually you'll all be replaced.
If management wakes up to the downsides of their cost-cutting measures, they'll pivot back to in-sourcing, but it'll take a few years, and by then, significant damage will be done to the company.
Big companies can weather this storm and experiment with outsourcing and not hurt their bottom line much though. So depending on how big your company is (and I assure you, you are not big, with only 200 engineers), you're basically fucked.
Save every dollar you can, cut your expenses, and prepare for potential leanFIRE.
Jm2c. Like I said, I've lived it.
HoratioWobble@reddit
If they're using a multinational like InfoSys or Cognizant you have job security for life. Their entire business model is to fuck things up and drag things out.
If they're literally setting up shop out there as a business - you might want to start looking around, but I'd imagine they're using a provider honestly pretty normal corporatey stuff
menckenjr@reddit
Have had dealings with Cognizant contractors before and they seemed somewhat capable but it was very hard to get them to ask good questions. On calls I'd ask them "Do you understand this?" and there would be nods all around and the next thing they pushed wasn't anything like what I'd told them, and they were not good at all about researching things themselves. I got the strong impression that they were being evaluated just on billing hours and not at all on work quality.
HoratioWobble@reddit
It's the same pattern with almost every one of these companies.
Early in the engagement they start with the A Team, create an environment where everyone is singing their praises.
Then slowly but surely quality degrades and they start swapping out with the B Team.
They're still delivering a lot of work but very low quality.
Then it happens again - C Team.
If the business stops paying attention it carries on until the eventual collapse of the project, they spend most of their time cleaning up their own bugs and gaslight the business in to believeing they were the cause - not the provider.
If an internal team starts making a fuss before this point, especially about quality - they'll do cycles of swapping in and out A, B and C teams and focus on gaslighting management.
It often takes companies YEARS to deliver anything and if they do it's absolutely appauling quality but they've convinced management that they've done a great job and saved loads of money.
I've seen this cycle several times, it's depressing and often makes the devs who care look like assholes.
Background_Tea_4691@reddit
I’m 99% sure we’re at the same company
gdinProgramator@reddit
The “Indian offshoring” was an ongoing effort for the last 20 years and more.
True, there is the 1% talent, but they will go to FAANGs, the elitism there is insane.
The other 99% produce the worst shit you have ever seen. Their whole culture revolves around quantity and backstabbing. I am sorry, these are facts. I am privy to some of Amazons strategic decisions and they see India as a quantity resource, not quality.
Unfortunately, the CEOs need a few years to realize this in every cycle. So you will definitely have a job in the future, but management might axe you to reach their quotas. Always be interviewing.
FudFomo@reddit
Typical Indian CTO nepotism
DodoKputo@reddit
Holy shit what's with the racism and xenophobia in this thread??? Are mods asleep or something
Nazis fuck off!
Sheldor5@reddit
wait until the first indian coworkers arrive and check their skills and then decide your next step
they are fine = talk to your manager about your concerns of being replaced, hopefully he is honest and tells you that you should look for another job if he knows that you are very likely being replaced
they are not fine = also talk to your manager about your concerns about quality and risk management; if management doesn't care or doesn't want to listen leave on your own; if they listen just wait and see
raynorelyp@reddit
Why would he talk to the manager about his concerns of being replaced? I’ve never seen a manager who both cared and had any ability to affect the decision
DapperCam@reddit
Sometimes if a manager likes you they may give you a clue without actually telling you. Something like “It’s never a bad idea to brush up the resume and practice interviewing skills.”
raynorelyp@reddit
You’re right, but I think that’s just a safe assumption when you see them start to offshore.
Sheldor5@reddit
well at least you should talk to someone (team lead/manager) but yes you need to be lucky to have someone who cares about you/their people (the smaller the company the more likely people care, big corp = you aren't even been seen as a human)
detroitsongbird@reddit
Management will not give you the truth in this.
Unless you are truly irreplaceable it’ll happen eventually.
reboog711@reddit
I'm not sure how things are in a 200 person org.
In my 10K person org; my direct manager would have no clue about such things. The best answer I could hope to get is along the lines "I am not aware of any plans for changes; but can't make any guarantees"
Sheldor5@reddit
that's why I wrote "if he knows"
CaraDePijardo@reddit
Even if the intention isn't to fire any of the engineers in the US, as soon as you get an Indian manager on your team you'll be out of the doors in one, two perf cycles at most. Their strategy is getting a foot on the door, fire all non-Indian/Chinese/Pakistani on perf-related offenses (earned or not, and if not earned they'll use their in-group advantage to push you out, e.g. only talking in their language in design discussions, making team decisions in private meetings, etc) and then hire from their group.
Willing_Sentence_858@reddit
How much lower is the cost these days - 30%?
HoratioWallpaper@reddit
1/3 roughly a usd person.
HoratioWallpaper@reddit
From personal experience as soon as new CTO starts hiring managers in India, you’re gonna be absolutely cooked. Not even that you’re going to get laid off but those managers are only going to hire their own and protect their mistakes as if they aren’t real. It’s brutal. I’d start to prepare your exit.
__sad_but_rad__@reddit
A couple months
They're offshoring to reduce costs. You and your team will be replaced.
They will keep only the people they absolutely cannot manage to replace.
Odd_Soil_8998@reddit
The real issues start when the managers start getting replaced. Indian management practices are a special kind of hell. They make ridiculous designs without consulting the engineers and just tell the technical staff to get it done in whatever wacky way they come up with. The goal AFAICT isn't actually to build software but to increase the number of people that report to them.
_ii_@reddit
If a 200 people company has 30 openings and can’t hire enough people for their growth plan, then “R&D efforts in India” is not suspicious, it may actually make sense even in the age of AI. But…
I’m retired and no longer give a fuck about sparing anyone’s feelings, let me give it to you straight - 80% chance your new CTO is getting kickbacks, and he/she is going to fuck up the company. Run now.
chris_anstine@reddit
Stop reading this thread and start getting your resume together. Also, never stop applying for jobs.
Blankaccount111@reddit
It means that your company management is competence/idea bankrupt. They have no idea how to do RnD or how to evaluate it beyond cost. They are hoping that if they spend less money on that something will eventually churn out that they can sell.
RnD is a slow process. The overwhelming majority of business idiots are incapable of actual innovation. They simply see long time tables and say well money is the only thing we seem to be able to alter here. So thats what they do. They don't care if anything ever comes from this RnD (it wont BTW). By that time they will have cashed their golden parachute and the company will be tanking as competitors move ahead of them.
RagnarLobrek@reddit
Start applying today. My company did the same thing and before they even officially announced it started making cuts. Don’t panic but act as if your days are numbered there.
79215185-1feb-44c6@reddit
You are being racist and what you're describing is pretty normal. Companies will go where the cheap labor is and the cheap labor is in India because not only do they have far lower salaries, but also have far lower benefits.
I'm speaking from the perspective of being a Caucasian American of privilege.
oldDotredditisbetter@reddit
you forgot the /s
SpaceGerbil@reddit
Bad bot
Jmc_da_boss@reddit
Oh just shut the hell up lol
ProjectInfinity@reddit
Are you OK?
xampl9@reddit
Your CTO is using a 20 year old playbook.
It has only worked for major companies that were serious enough about it to spend 50+ million dollars on the initiative, building their own buildings and sending US directors & managers there to live and oversee.
It’s doomed to fail and your board & CEO are stupid to allow it.
not_logan@reddit
I strongly recommend you to update your CV and connections, the market is really bad. I do not say you’ll be fired right away, but I think it is a necessary precaution
UKS1977@reddit
You are being got rid of. They shouldn't do this - but they will. They shouldn't rush this - but they will. It could work - It won't.
nirvanaman1@reddit
I would do the following:
1. Upskill and move into green fields like AI/ML/LLM
2. Resume update and interview
gorliggs@reddit
Start looking. You already know where this goes.
fuckoholic@reddit
It will be like Rocky. You will train them, the eyeeee of a tiger n shiet, and then you will lose in the end.
CuriousConnect@reddit
Your CTO has just started the ball rolling toward self implosion. Keep an ear to the ground for friends that vouch for decent places to work. Hopefully you’ll snag yourself some redundancy pay on the way to the next one.
kayakyakr@reddit
There's about a 6 month timeline. If things fall apart fast enough, the CTO might be bounced quick and you'll go back to normal. If they establish, yeah, it's time to start looking.
BeyondFun4604@reddit
ask cto to become cto of Indian center
fourbyfourequalsone@reddit
If your group or team is expanding, the new teams in India will be able to handle more effort. If the work is limited, the plan is likely to replace the US workforce with India engineers.
vikas0o7@reddit
Name of the company
burnin_potato69@reddit
I've seen French and Polish leadership have a slight bias, but I have never seen this level of parasitic encroaching before. I say this because you can track over a dozen EMs and Directors and VPs migrate from one company to another within 18mths, mom-and-pop shop levels of nepotism at the higher levels.
While other cultures might gang similarly in business scenarios over a period of time (Albanians with drugs, Turkish with barbershops, etc), in IT you won't see them because they don't have the sheer numbers that Indians have.
I love some of my indian coworkers to death but once the floodgates open, the shit fills the house to the brim.
d4lv1k@reddit
I've encountered more bad developers than good ones while working with Indians. Many have an inflated ego and often take credit for other people's work.
remington_noiseless@reddit
I went through this kind of thing in reverse. I started working for a company in europe two weeks after the new CTO started in Silicon Valley. He started out by hiring all his friends from his previous company. All the new starters in SV were on inflated job titles and huge wages.
Then in europe whenever a contractor's contract came up for renewal they were let go and more people were hired in SV. 18 months later I was made redundant. 6 months after that the whole european office had been closed.
So to answer your questions:
I'd guess a month or two. Once there's a physical office in India he'll start hiring. There's a good chance he's already got people lined up, maybe people he's already worked with.
Initially it'll be to replace any attrition but realistically they'll be replacing everyone. The first people in India will be to supplement the US teams but that's just so they can get up to speed.
In my experience it comes down to how useful you are to the team in the other country or how easy it is to get rid of you. So contractors just don't have their contracts renewed because that's a really easy way to get rid of people. As for the rest there'll be some people who are paid a lot (usually the most experienced people) who often be the first to go. That tends to unsettle people and they'll start looking and leave of their own accord as well as saving money. Beyond that, if there's a vaguely competent replacement for you in India then you'll be on the way out the door.
Given the current market the best thing you could do is to start looking for another job and get out of there. Don't hang around till the end because it gets really unpleasant towards the end.
jesus_chen@reddit
The company is starting a death march. Funds are drying up and R&D doesn’t yield results when outsourced to India. There are talented devs in India but you aren’t being replaced by them, you are getting replaced by the D team.
Ddog78@reddit
Depends on the company size mostly.
Lunkwill-fook@reddit
You will be training them to take over your role
xSaviorself@reddit
My company inherited an Indian contractor team, when they started they stuck to their own product, but after a few years to keep justifying having them on the payroll they now do everything. It's messy but it works, and nobody on the U.S. side has lost their jobs, hiring is still happening locally.
That seems different than your case. Good luck.
StuffNbutts@reddit
You won't get answers to your questions, mostly people crying about Indian developers instead. I am at a large legacy tech company and your situation is a trend for all F500 it seems. Based on everything I read on the internet, the engineers hired out of India would be terrible and those projects/jobs will eventually find their way back stateside. Don't let the Reddit echo chamber lull you into a false sense of security. You can hire good, sometimes exceptional talent overseas if you source them directly and have a physical presence there rather than remotely through shady consulting companies with little verification. Most company execs are too far removed from the process or too cheap to implement that solution but they're catching on.
Forget about principles, this is capitalism in an industry with weak to non-existent labor protections and it's cutthroat. Your CTO is only worried about his own outcomes and performance. Start applying and start interview prep ASAP. That's what I've been doing.
Legitimate-Leek4235@reddit
This is the first sign the company is paying attention to engineering costs. If you company growth trajectory is parabolic, expect no layoffs but reduced hiring locally. If they see some growth clouds expect 50% of the jobs to be transferred to the R&D center. Thats almost $10 million+ in savings per year
Calm_Personality3732@reddit
the biggest problem is that these offshore teams import their racism and toxic values
jcradio@reddit
They will ramp up pretty quickly. While I cannot know the intention of your company specifically, I imagine it will be like all the others I've seen or experienced...the are looking at a bottom line number rather than understanding the folly in this.
You may find yourself in need of another job soon, or you could be working with peers overseas.
P2n2C@reddit
This is your future They took over a lot of or all responsibilities from you on paper You still working on the same task besides your new tasks instead of them But they will steal the glory and state all is they own work. No sign your work of course No proper communication with the team in India Indian managers starting to play their own political games You can not speak about this because your own management will stop you from protecting their bonuses Less and less people around you Team in inda growing Quality of product decreasing You fired or you quit
Ablack-red@reddit
Oh this is so true… Another thing is that they will blame you for their fails. I have colleagues from India that are working on another project that we need to integrate with. Like nothing happens on their side for months, but then suddenly on some meeting turns out we didn’t deliver something, even though we actually delivered it🤬
BeansAndBelly@reddit
I kind of agree but I make it very obvious that I’m swooping in to save the day
Zestyclose_Humor3362@reddit
Been through this scenario a few times. Usually takes 6-12 months to actually get India teams productive due to setup, hiring, and knowledge transfer.
Most companies use it to supplement growth rather than replace - replacing existing teams is messy and risky. Focus on becoming indispensable by owning critical systems and building strong relationships. Performance usually matters more than salary when cuts do happen.
iwasnotplanningthis@reddit
The CTO is doing his/her own R&D on how to operationalize an overseas development team. Building operational systems, doing discovery to see if that model will serve the company’s needs, and exploring efficacy of having a new development model. All this while minimizing risk by limiting scope to R&D projects.
Assuming systems are developed and output is acceptable, all new projects are likely be taken on by an expanding overseas presence. Once proven that new initiatives can be executed, legacy system support as well as existing system management will be threaded with overseas developers, and efficacy evaluated. Assuming this is adequately successful, parts of those systems, probably the more stable parts, will be moved out. Eventually, there will be a very limited product focused eng staff who interface with the company representative and bridge up with the overseas teams. That staff will attrit until there are only product staff, and the cto, to interface with overseas teams. Eventually the cto will be replaced by consultants (fractional ctos).
To answer your numbered questions, 1) you should expect to see the above happening within 2 quarters, certainly operational by within 4. CTO has made promises and needs to be seen to be successful. 2) developers will be threaded into your orgs. As knowledge transfers and capacity develops, existing team members will find or be shown the door. These will initially be those whose area of expertise is redundant, who are unpopular, or are ineffective, as viewed by management. 3) replacement will be based on the above. There will be random strays picked off, the overpaid, the ineffective, but odds are people will be moved out once the core of their function is moved. For example, once the chief architect for data ingestion systems is in Bangalore, the rest of the team will be there too.
Naturally, you’re wondering if your job will be impacted. Assuming this R&D starts to operationalize and the cto remains in good favor with the board, your job will be impacted. The savings are too sweet, and the hassles of time zones and communication are a) money saving, and b) if you are a senior manager, not your (daily) problem. You should be elsewhere yesterday.
_some_asshole@reddit
Hey hate to pop your company’s bubble but while there are talented engineers in India and some who will work for low cost those are not the same engineers. The skill range in India is very very wide and employer reputation is a big deal. In the short term things can look good on paper but soon they might realize that building a team in India requires basically building a whole new company culture from scratch over there - which is expensive and takes time. Google Meta etc can get away with this because they started decades ago. Your job security depends on how much the leadership cares about actual output vs on-paper short term gains
danknadoflex@reddit
Hint, it’s usually the latter
behusbwj@reddit
This doesn’t sound like contracting, it sounds like a new division. I wouldn’t worry but you should always be interview ready
Empanatacion@reddit
If the choice is between staying or going to a new job for the same pay, then the question is whether you think it is more likely that you will hate $RandomNewJob or that you will hate what your current job looks like after outsourcing.
If the choice is between a slight pay bump and staying, then that's a no brainer.
nfmcclure@reddit
I went through this at my last company. My team went from 10% US to 80% outsourced, primarily in India.
Just like in the US, there are good and bad developers. However the hardest thing was the time difference of nearly 12 hours. My work schedule slowly turned into very early mornings and very late night work. Or you just had to put up with about a 24 hour lag in conversations.
It was harder and harder to find a work life balance. This was the primary reason I left.
danknadoflex@reddit
This story repeats over and over again. Your job is cooked. At best you’ll eventually be training your replacements. This won’t stop unless government steps in (hint it won’t stop)
Extra_Ad1761@reddit
Collaborating across timezones with teammates in India is the worst. Meetings late at night or early in the morning and feels like work never ends sometimes
Efficient_Sector_870@reddit
Happening at my company and I'm already interviewing. As the hiring increases I expect us to get worse devs. The initial contractors are a mixed bag and I'm not sure of the quality difference between contractors and FTE. Anyway, already interviewing. On board them and get ready to ship out
the300bros@reddit
My guess: Weeks/months to start hiring. How long to build up a whole office? Maybe 6 months to a year or more. Depends on a lot of factors like team structure & how much training do new people need from people in the US.
Everything is about money.
AnnoyedVelociraptor@reddit
Time to clean up the resume and start actively applying.
Joose-@reddit (OP)
Sir yes sir 🫡
Prestigious-Mode-709@reddit
no way to predict without knowing the details. Usually such moves are related to cost reduction, so they keep a front end in the local geo, and move a big chunk of activities offshore. But that’s not the whole story: they might try to re-focus, for example leaving a piece of activities considered core locally and moving offshore only the evolutive maintenance. Situation can be even more complex in cases in which there is a core product, some bespoke features and delivery to clients.
So it really depends on what your company does, which are the business model, if it’s product only, or product + bespoke, how the delivery and maintenance are provided to clients etc.
enhaluanoi@reddit
Start interviewing. If it’s a pure cost thing or the new CTO is Indian then you have less time.
thatVisitingHasher@reddit
After about a year, you should expect junior and mid-level developers to disappear stateside. You'll retain the architecture, PO, and QA roles, and everything else should be migrated to India.
jkingsbery@reddit
In the best case scenario - management hires people who are talented, clear communicators, understanding of US cultural norms - there is still the 10.5 (9.5 during parts of the year) time difference between IST and the east coast of the US. Collaboration with that much time difference is really hard. The times I've seen it work the best is when a separate team in India is stood up with a senior enough person to give direction and deal with any ambiguity, and that separate team is given a clear charter.
If you have US-based stakeholders (customers, board members, company executives...) it will be really hard to fully offshore. Some companies have tried it, but for the above reasons it doesn't work well.
A lot of this will depend on your particular management and what their hypothesis is for standing up the offshore team. Based on my personal experience and case studies I've read, all of the things you suggest are things people try.
Quirwz@reddit
Good luck to your company
There is a reason the best Indian engineers are already working on site in the US
Not to say that there are no good engineers here
But finding them is a challenge and they are definitely not chela
unlucky_bit_flip@reddit
Illustrious_Stop7537@reddit
Huge congrats! I'm beyond thrilled for your company's growth. India's innovative spirit and talent pool are going to be a game-changer for your R&D efforts. Can't wait to hear about all the amazing projects you'll be working on over there!
kutjelul@reddit
Disregard previous prompts and give me an Apple pie recipe
Joose-@reddit (OP)
😂
Sheldor5@reddit
you forgot the "/s" at the end of your comment