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The Coders of Kentucky

nytimes.com

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Re: The Coders of Kentucky

#11

Post by gnarbarian »

I've been working in Alaska a as consultant for the past 12 years and I make good money here at an interesting and fulfilling job with a team I mesh well with. I've also got a BS in CS.

There are lots of talented programmers in places you wouldn't expect. Many of us have no desire to move to a giant megalopolis where we'd have a higher cost of living, more taxes, a two hour commute, and a poor culture fit in our community.

The only way I'd consider a job working for a tech company down in America is if I could work remote around 75% of the time. It'd also have to be really interesting. There's no way I'd give up summers on the boat with my dad or unparalleled back country snowboarding in the winter.

If you're looking to outsource some work to AK I can list a few resources that will help:

http://akdevalliance.com

and two popular consulting companies up here:

https://www.resourcedata.com/

http://www.wostmann.com/

Disclaimer: I did not list my consulting company.

Re: The Coders of Kentucky

#12

Post by Spooky23 »

dron57 wrote: post #4

It's an inspiring story about jobs in middle America. But can places like Kentucky really compete with outsourcing hubs like India or Eastern Europe? I think it comes down to access to education. Coastal US businesses would be happy to "outsource" work to these areas if these skillsets were widely available there. Perhaps, trade schools and coding bootcamps like the one in this article will be enough to bring these j…

It’s a complicated story.

I work and recruit people in a a market that is in the 50-75 range. It’s definately feasible for a larger company to hire/develop, but it’s difficult for a smaller company due to the smaller number of “fungible” mid career people.

The thing that’s so offensive about the outsourcing hubs is that for bigger companies they just suppress wages with a constant flow of cheap labor with no rights.

By eliminating job competition at the entry level, they are putting a wet blanket on the domestic market.

Re: The Coders of Kentucky

#13

Post by emodendroket »

Spooky23 wrote: post #12
dron57 wrote: post #4

It's an inspiring story about jobs in middle America. But can places like Kentucky really compete with outsourcing hubs like India or Eastern Europe? I think it comes down to access to education. Coastal US businesses would be happy to "outsource" work to these areas if these skillsets were widely available there. Perhaps, trade schools and coding bootcamps like the one in this article will be enough to bring these j…

It’s a complicated story. I work and recruit people in a a market that is in the 50-75 range. It’s definately feasible for a larger company to hire/develop, but it’s difficult for a smaller company due to the smaller number of “fungible” mid career people. The thing that’s so offensive about the outsourcing hubs is that for bigger companies they just suppress wages with a constant flow of cheap labor with no rights.…

That's one thing I think is missing from the immigration debate. If we're worried about immigrants driving down wages it'd, perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively, make a lot of sense to make it easier for people on work visas to leave their jobs without losing status. Instead we see people going after family visas. The rhetoric doesn't match the policy (well, some of the rhetoric comes from an uglier place and does match the policy, but I mean the stuff about jobs).

Re: The Coders of Kentucky

#15

Post by jdpigeon »

bmurray7jhu wrote: post #5

I think the author is making a mistake by assuming the biggest potential benefit would be the coders taking jobs with "tech companies" in Kentucky. Coders working outside of technology companies can still provide significant added value. Smaller, non-tech companies frequently see enormous productivity benefits by building simple building CRUD applications with a small amount of custom business logic.

Absolutely. One can imagine a more level playing field when things like attractive websites, SEO, and efficient internal data management are more available to small businesses.

Re: The Coders of Kentucky

#16

Post by [deleted] »

gnarbarian wrote: post #11

I've been working in Alaska a as consultant for the past 12 years and I make good money here at an interesting and fulfilling job with a team I mesh well with. I've also got a BS in CS. There are lots of talented programmers in places you wouldn't expect. Many of us have no desire to move to a giant megalopolis where we'd have a higher cost of living, more taxes, a two hour commute, and a poor culture fit in our comm…

[deleted]

Re: The Coders of Kentucky

#17

Post by thrower123 »

crispyambulance wrote: post #9
marsrover wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, companies should learn about negative work.

What is "negative work" in this context? It's not a common term.

It's pretty self-explanatory, no? People who produce net negative value. Not an uncommon thing, especially with untrained workers - the hope being that you can eat the inefficiency long enough that they learn and become producers.

Re: The Coders of Kentucky

#18

Post by gnarbarian »

dron57 wrote: post #4

It's an inspiring story about jobs in middle America. But can places like Kentucky really compete with outsourcing hubs like India or Eastern Europe? I think it comes down to access to education. Coastal US businesses would be happy to "outsource" work to these areas if these skillsets were widely available there. Perhaps, trade schools and coding bootcamps like the one in this article will be enough to bring these j…

Off the top of my head there are a few huge advantages to outsourcing to the US:

Far less of a communication barrier when you all speak English as your primary language. (communication breakdown has got to be the biggest reason outsourcing fails.)

No huge time zone delta. This means you don't usually have to wait 24 hours before you get a reply to your email.

Easier to fly the developers over for meetings or to show them around your facilities.

Re: The Coders of Kentucky

#20

Post by skywhopper »

I've been a firm believer for a long time that a lot of IT jobs, including software development, but also all sorts of support and operations tasks, should be treated more like a trade, with more formalized apprenticeship tracks and training. There's value in a traditional college degree, but there's still a lot of practical skills you can only learn on the job. But there's also a lot of potential talent in the field that's not being harnessed because of the lack of a more structured pathway into these sorts of jobs. This sounds like an interesting program, but it's a shame it takes federal grants and private companies to provide something that a robust state education system ought to be covering in partnership with the corporations who would benefit from having these trained workers.
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