Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#81

Post by hahahahahka » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

crote wrote: post #13

It seems to be missing a very big factor: culture. If your goal is to implement some code for, say, healthcare, it is a lot easier to explain the business process to someone who is already familiar with how stuff is done on a higher level. Whenever you hire someone from a different culture / country, you need to start from the basics by explaining the very core of your society. An American programmer might not be too…

> culture

except the vast majority of FAANgs work force are immigrants.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#82

Post by Supermancho » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

siscia wrote: post #24

smaddox wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We do have problem coordinate between teams that share the same hall and the same boss So perhaps proximity is not the issue?

The reality I see, is that all of us are overworked / with a lot of responsibilities. So it is easy to miss important emails or details. As long as we are close to each other, very important things don't get lost.

> The reality I see, is that all of us are overworked / with a lot of responsibilities.

The bigger the company, the less this is true (although there are also a whole host of smaller companies where this isn't true either). My last 3 companies are not filled with people who are overworked AND have little responsibility. Remote-only has exacerbated the slack.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#83

Post by kevinkw » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

Colleges and Universities with good CS departments that graduate a lot of undergrads are also a huge factor (quality and quantity). The students in that country has the most immediate access, and it is also a big draw of talent from other countries. In 2019 13% of US CS bachelors were awarded to "Nonresident Alien" students, 65% of Masters, and 60% PhD.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#84

Post by petra » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #62

jesstaa wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely it. The best markets for selling software are the wealthy countries with their cultures. You need people in those countries that are part of those cultures to develop that software. So your employment market is limited by people within that culture that have that skill, which is why there is still a software development skills shortage. For purely technical things like kernel, database, network or…

But by this hypothesis, countries that have a different culture, but have similarly good programmers, would be able to produce a product suited to their own culture and thus out-compete the imported english version. But this rarely happens, if at all. So there's something that's still amiss.

Partly, this could be explained by culture: a democratic culture produced more innovation.

And the best US companies have developed an internal culture that might not be easy to develop.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#85

Post by dugmartin » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

bluetomcat wrote: post #67

silvestrov wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another aspect of culture: how one-sided the communication is. Silicon Valley and Scandinavian cultures are very flat, so it is possible for "the man on the floor" to tell management that it doesn't work to put diesel into a gasoline car. In authoritarian cultures this would be a mistake as it's seen as embarrassing the management by saying they made a mistake. If you want to continue being employed then it is much b…

An authoritarian culture, however, can get work done much quicker while staying with a razor-sharp focus. The whole "democratic" decision-making process takes time and leads to a sequence of decisions spread throughout the time domain, which, taken together, might lead to a suboptimal result compared to what might be achieved by following the steps of an "enlightened benevolent dictator".

The problem is that due to the Peter principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle) the people making the decisions are not competent to make them.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#86

Post by JohnBooty » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

vbtemp wrote: post #28

Yanu-3452 wrote: post #4

This is an odd analysis, because as it highlights, salaries are strongly correlated with wealth of the country. So the question really becomes, not why are salaries different, but "why is programming difficult to offshore". If programming was easy to import and export then either salaries would even out or, more likely, would be relocated to cheaper countries like many kinds of manufacturing. But software is difficul…

> why is programming difficult to offshore" Lack of professionalism and absence of a professional engineering culture in many of the places you'd seek to outsource to save money. Doesn't mean that professionalism doesn't exist, it's just that the ones that have it are already busy with their own thing and not interested in being low-cost labor

    Lack of professionalism and absence of a 
    professional engineering culture in many 
    of the places you'd seek to outsource to 
    save money.

I think the "absence of a professional engineering culture in many of the places" results primarily from the nature of contracting itself. I see this in onshore contracting as well.

Contract-based engineering is nearly always a recipe for technical debt.

The team will nearly always focus on today's problems. Not tomorrow's. Because... why should they? They are judged solely on how well they're solving today's problem. And they likely won't be around in three months or three years to reap the true rewards of reduced technical debt anyway.

Contracted engineers also haven't simply been around your business long enough to truly understand it and anticipate what future needs will even exist.

All other things being roughly equal I'll take a full-time, permanent, offshore engineer over an onshore contractor any day of the week.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#87

Post by andrewla » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

siscia wrote: post #17

> Programming jobs are silly easy to move around and most of them can be done remotely. As long as you start with this hypothesis whatever analysis you do will be wrong. We do have problem coordinate between teams that share the same hall and the same boss, I cannot even imagine what would happen with complete remote team in Vietnam to save money. It would be just better to stop develop software ourselves. Now with C…

Put another way, the converse hypothesis "programming jobs are not easy to move around and most of them can not be done remotely" resisted falsification, increasing our confidence in its truth.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#88

Post by runawaybottle » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

Why speculate? Enterprise outsources all the time. Their products aren’t great but they offer a certain passable quality level (and to say that quality isn’t affected when you start dramatically messing with price is insane).

Part of my team was already very affordable contractors in America. The company found a way to get even cheaper in India. I don’t think it’s as simple as cost, as in this case I think the company literally looked at the product and concluded ‘we don’t need this level of quality’. I understand I’m implying the quality will drop due to outsourcing, but it has nothing to do with a prejudice towards off shore work. If you drop prices dramatically the logic behind it is that you are prepared for a quality drop as quality is not the prime concern.

Every year, I spend more and more money on things I value. Sometimes it’s just a stupid upgrade on a chair, monitor, clothes, etc. If I fundamentally don’t find the value in a good mechanical keyboard, every year I will try to reduce my investment in it. That doesn’t mean I’m looking for a bad cheap keyboard, but that I’m okay with something passable since I see no value in a better one. I see more value in getting away with a passable one.

Is there a trillion dollars of untapped savings? Yes, for those seeking it, for those with different values.

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#89

Post by raphaelj » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

Could the working culture also affect the average salary?

For example, an average US employee will on average work 30% more hours per year than a German employee [1].

Working in the Netherlands, I also know that a lot of engineers will deliberately choose to work part time (e.g. 30h/week) even if it ends up with a lower annual income.

[1] https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm

Re: Is a trillion dollars’ worth of programming lying on the ground?

#90

Post by kakwa_ » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #44

crote wrote: post #13

It seems to be missing a very big factor: culture. If your goal is to implement some code for, say, healthcare, it is a lot easier to explain the business process to someone who is already familiar with how stuff is done on a higher level. Whenever you hire someone from a different culture / country, you need to start from the basics by explaining the very core of your society. An American programmer might not be too…

Another aspect of culture: how one-sided the communication is. Silicon Valley and Scandinavian cultures are very flat, so it is possible for "the man on the floor" to tell management that it doesn't work to put diesel into a gasoline car. In authoritarian cultures this would be a mistake as it's seen as embarrassing the management by saying they made a mistake. If you want to continue being employed then it is much b…

From an European perspective, this has not exactly been my experience working with an international team.

The US collective mentality is sometime overly optimistic specially in public. This is sometimes a positive since it removes almost any inhibition regarding challenges, but it can lead to things blowing-up spectacularly, and then having to put in place hacks and brute force to make it kind of work relatively inefficiently and inelegantly.

But it also leads to great successes (biggest economy in the world, lots of major companies, very attractive country for talents) and innovations never seen before.

This positivism is prevalent in public statement but in private cracks start to appear. It gives me the impression that this positivism is pretty much a cultural obligation, so while not authoritarian, the group mentality is geared toward not talking to much about possible difficulties out of fear of being seen as too negative by the group.