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Uber CEO Wants to Shift More Engineering Jobs to India, Sparking Internal Debate

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Re: Uber CEO Wants to Shift More Engineering Jobs to India, Sparking Internal Debate

#11

Post by villgax »

ixvvqktiwl wrote: post #4

I used to think this was a bad thing, but these days I'm not so sure. Assuming you can get the same (or similar) talent in India instead of the US, doesn't it make sense to do your development in a place where your money goes farther? The capitalist in me sees this as a win: more value for shareholders, and a big life improvement for Indians. Can someone explain to me why it's a bad thing? I understand it might be ba…

Its only for a fraction of Indians & it would most likely be those with an MS from the states or ones who's H1Bs just got knocked out.

Re: Uber CEO Wants to Shift More Engineering Jobs to India, Sparking Internal Debate

#13

Post by [deleted] »

jaywalk wrote: post #9
ixvvqktiwl wrote: post #4

I used to think this was a bad thing, but these days I'm not so sure. Assuming you can get the same (or similar) talent in India instead of the US, doesn't it make sense to do your development in a place where your money goes farther? The capitalist in me sees this as a win: more value for shareholders, and a big life improvement for Indians. Can someone explain to me why it's a bad thing? I understand it might be ba…

Why not just move the entire company to India, and pay everyone less?

[deleted]

Re: Uber CEO Wants to Shift More Engineering Jobs to India, Sparking Internal Debate

#14

Post by 0xcafecafe »

Avalaxy wrote: post #3
atonse wrote: post #2

It's hard to ignore the siren song as a business person of comparing your 300k a year engineers to a senior engineer that costs $80k in India (regardless of the potential hidden costs of cultural and time zone differences). This gap should probably narrow as more remote work becomes normal, and more people move out of the Valley and can actually live decently on 150k, rather than 300k.

I think the cost of an engineer is way less than 80K in India. Here in the Netherlands a senior SE would be $80K. I see no reason to go to India instead of western Europe then.

I don't think it is "way less". 80K USD converts to 5,979K INR which is about the ballpark estimate some of the senior engineers I know make in India (one of them is working for the Western European company btw).

One of the reasons to move to India would be the availability of talent even if it is at comparable cost. Companies like to scale and lack of talent is a risk they want to mitigate.

Re: Uber CEO Wants to Shift More Engineering Jobs to India, Sparking Internal Debate

#15

Post by illuminati1911 »

atonse wrote: post #2

It's hard to ignore the siren song as a business person of comparing your 300k a year engineers to a senior engineer that costs $80k in India (regardless of the potential hidden costs of cultural and time zone differences). This gap should probably narrow as more remote work becomes normal, and more people move out of the Valley and can actually live decently on 150k, rather than 300k.

With 80k you could get a team of senior engineers in India.

Or ”senior engineers”, but anyway.

Re: Uber CEO Wants to Shift More Engineering Jobs to India, Sparking Internal Debate

#16

Post by xwdv »

ixvvqktiwl wrote: post #4

I used to think this was a bad thing, but these days I'm not so sure. Assuming you can get the same (or similar) talent in India instead of the US, doesn't it make sense to do your development in a place where your money goes farther? The capitalist in me sees this as a win: more value for shareholders, and a big life improvement for Indians. Can someone explain to me why it's a bad thing? I understand it might be ba…

You cannot get the same talent in India that you get in the U.S., at scale.

Re: Uber CEO Wants to Shift More Engineering Jobs to India, Sparking Internal Debate

#17

Post by villgax »

bberenberg wrote: post #10
ixvvqktiwl wrote: post #4

I used to think this was a bad thing, but these days I'm not so sure. Assuming you can get the same (or similar) talent in India instead of the US, doesn't it make sense to do your development in a place where your money goes farther? The capitalist in me sees this as a win: more value for shareholders, and a big life improvement for Indians. Can someone explain to me why it's a bad thing? I understand it might be ba…

"Assuming you can get the same (or similar) talent in India instead of the US" I am not aware of anyone who has succeeded at this in practice. Do you know anyone?

So many companies have R&D offices in India, Intel, Qualcomm, AMD, Samsung etc. If you are asking move the entire company over here, that won't make sense since you need to hire brass for representation. It's the middle layer that is costly & can be moved off.

Re: Uber CEO Wants to Shift More Engineering Jobs to India, Sparking Internal Debate

#18

Post by LeifCarrotson »

atonse wrote: post #2

It's hard to ignore the siren song as a business person of comparing your 300k a year engineers to a senior engineer that costs $80k in India (regardless of the potential hidden costs of cultural and time zone differences). This gap should probably narrow as more remote work becomes normal, and more people move out of the Valley and can actually live decently on 150k, rather than 300k.

Why should those engineers be paid $150k if they're generating more than $300k of value? For that matter, why should an Indian engineer be paid $80k if they're generating $300k of value minus whatever hidden costs you want to assign (surely not $220k)?

Re: Uber CEO Wants to Shift More Engineering Jobs to India, Sparking Internal Debate

#19

Post by gpm »

jaywalk wrote: post #9
ixvvqktiwl wrote: post #4

I used to think this was a bad thing, but these days I'm not so sure. Assuming you can get the same (or similar) talent in India instead of the US, doesn't it make sense to do your development in a place where your money goes farther? The capitalist in me sees this as a win: more value for shareholders, and a big life improvement for Indians. Can someone explain to me why it's a bad thing? I understand it might be ba…

Why not just move the entire company to India, and pay everyone less?

Because people will quit instead of moving, and those people have very valuable institutional knowledge.

Re: Uber CEO Wants to Shift More Engineering Jobs to India, Sparking Internal Debate

#20

Post by ilaksh »

ixvvqktiwl wrote: post #4

I used to think this was a bad thing, but these days I'm not so sure. Assuming you can get the same (or similar) talent in India instead of the US, doesn't it make sense to do your development in a place where your money goes farther? The capitalist in me sees this as a win: more value for shareholders, and a big life improvement for Indians. Can someone explain to me why it's a bad thing? I understand it might be ba…

Its a trend that will reduce US salaries and number of jobs. So US programmers can't be enthused.
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