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Uber wants to cut costs by shifting its engineering to India

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Re: Uber wants to cut costs by shifting its engineering to India

#71

Post by tedjdziuba »

mabbo wrote: post #36

A better option: shift it's engineering to everywhere else in America , and go full-remote, but pay less. Imagine if Uber told it's developers: we're cutting salaries by 40%- but you are now full-remote, and we want you to live somewhere less expensive than SV. Spread out across America! A lot of folks would quit. But some would see the incredible opportunity. In that situation, I'd move somewhere like Chattanooga TN…

Equal pay for equal work. The concept swings many ways, even inconvenient ones.

Re: Uber wants to cut costs by shifting its engineering to India

#73

Post by anonms-coward »

yesplorer wrote: post #55
temporarysdwvit wrote: post #31

How is code quality control in India?

No, it's cheaper because of huge difference in cost of living. $10,000/month may not go far in SV, but in parts of India, you can live like a king, literally, with servants and such. Rent for a studio apartment in India will cost less than $200. I'm not kidding. But a similar space in SV can cost 10 times more of that.

I think you replied to the wrong comment.

Re: Uber wants to cut costs by shifting its engineering to India

#74

Post by anonms-coward »

interdrift wrote: post #19

What a huge mistake in my opinion if that goes through. Everyone who worked with indian companies should keep an eye on what's going on. Far too much more damage can be done!

I think you are comparing it to the wrong scenario. Hiring for your own company(Uber in this case) is far different than outsourcing to an Indian company like Infosys and TCS. Microsoft already has a huge presence in India, and so does Amazon. I have interacted with engineers in FAANG in both India and the west coast, and there is no huge quality difference in people on the same job levels.

Re: Uber wants to cut costs by shifting its engineering to India

#75

Post by balfirevic »

viraptor wrote: post #68
balfirevic wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In that situation, I'd move somewhere like Chattanooga TN- average rent at around $1000/month, vs SF's $3000-5000. Food is cheaper too. That rent difference turns out to be $24000-$48000 a year. If salaries are cut by 40%, it would only make economic sense to move if you earned less than $60000-$120000 a year (not accounting for cheaper food). Whether the lifestyle differences would be positive or negative is highl…

Add other bits of cheaper living: lack of commute, cheaper food, etc. It's not just the rent. Also think how much is an extra hour every day (or however long you commute) worth to you in quality of life.

> Add other bits of cheaper living: lack of commute, cheaper food, etc. It's not just the rent.

At this point, people arguing for moving to lower cost of living area should just show the math.

> Also think how much is an extra hour every day (or however long you commute) worth to you in quality of life.

Just live close to the office. You can literally pay thousands of dollars a month and still be better of financially.

And really, how much is it worth? Is it worth $100K a year? Because that's how much less disposable income/savings some of the people with higher salaries would find them selves with in the proposed scenario.

Re: Uber wants to cut costs by shifting its engineering to India

#76

Post by temporarysdwvit »

anonms-coward wrote: post #73
yesplorer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's cheaper because of huge difference in cost of living. $10,000/month may not go far in SV, but in parts of India, you can live like a king, literally, with servants and such. Rent for a studio apartment in India will cost less than $200. I'm not kidding. But a similar space in SV can cost 10 times more of that.

I think you replied to the wrong comment.

No, it’s the right one, I removed controversial sentence

Re: Uber wants to cut costs by shifting its engineering to India

#77

Post by ykevinator »

itake wrote: post #54
felixarba wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not as good as it sounds just because it works for you. People don't love moving, and they usually move for better work opportunities, not to accomodate a pay cut at their current job. Moving to a lower cost of living area also means moving to an area with less opportunities, and not to mention moving away from your social circles and the life you have established somewhere. The only way I can see this workin…

To add to this when I worked remotely for two years I was always worried that if I move to a low cost of living city and I lost my job I will be screwed. No one would hire me at the rate I was paid with the SF company.

That's the first guys point, remote enables cheaper american salaries, a better option for the company but bad for you (sorry)

Re: Uber wants to cut costs by shifting its engineering to India

#78

Post by ghaff »

lumost wrote: post #66
nkingsy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has happened to me. Ended up working for a very scary company because they were the only local option that came close to matching my bay area salary. Moved back to the Bay Area less than a year later. Lesson learned, I won’t be moving again without a relocation package

This has always been my big concern with leaving a major tech city ( even to go to the suburbs ). your opportunities shrink. I'd be curious if this will change as more companies offer full-time remote.

Silicon Valley (mostly) is "the suburbs." Although there are more tech jobs in downtowns than there used to be, in a lot of areas most of the tech jobs are in suburbs/exurbs.

Re: Uber wants to cut costs by shifting its engineering to India

#79

Post by viraptor »

balfirevic wrote: post #75
viraptor wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add other bits of cheaper living: lack of commute, cheaper food, etc. It's not just the rent. Also think how much is an extra hour every day (or however long you commute) worth to you in quality of life.

> Add other bits of cheaper living: lack of commute, cheaper food, etc. It's not just the rent. At this point, people arguing for moving to lower cost of living area should just show the math. > Also think how much is an extra hour every day (or however long you commute) worth to you in quality of life. Just live close to the office. You can literally pay thousands of dollars a month and still be better of financiall…

You can't really show the math beyond personal experience and even then it's all relative to your lifestyle.

Living in the city near the office also depends on the area. I can get out off my town in ~5min at any time of the day. There's no traffic on my street. I've got a creek and walking paths nearby. I have time to cook at home and save on takeaways and potentially improve my health. I wouldn't exchange this for an extra $100k and daily commute.

Living in a smaller city will be different. Having different hobbies will have an impact. I don't see any way to show this makes sense in general. It will be make sense for some people though.

Re: Uber wants to cut costs by shifting its engineering to India

#80

Post by quicklime »

crowquill wrote: post #40
quicklime wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Outsourcing to India has gone on for 2-3 decades. It's not some new disruptive thing. I guess what's different here is that Uber is a proper tech company and knows how to identify good engineers to hire. The same cannot be said of non-tech companies that have outsourced to consultancies like Infosys and Wipro.

And I don’t think that makes a difference. All FAANG companies (which I’d say can also identify good engineers) already have engineering offices in India.

The results that Uber gets will depend on exactly how they execute. If they're serious about their goal to "shift engineering innovation to India", then it might be different from what the FAANGs have done.

In my experience working with the India team at (one of) the FAANGs, it seemed like they were offloading the work that people didn't want to do in SV to the Hyderabad office (e.g. testing, maintenance of legacy systems).

But it could also be the case that there are innovative things being built in these India offices that people just assume were built in the US.

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