Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theinformation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 225 posts

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

#111

Post by gorpomon »

atonse wrote: post #69
gorpomon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is well-trodden ground as far as discussion around here goes. The common points pro and con always come up: is the quality the same (some say yes, some say no), is co-location or time-zone location important (same parenthetical), what $ amount is ethical to pay, whom is it more ethical to pay (are you a nationalist or a global citizen, etc), what's sustainable, many more etc's. I've decided that's it's a persona…

Genuine question: I wasn't aware that I added any politics – is there any argument that I made that can be seen as political?

My apologies, you didn't-- I was just discussing further from your comment as opposed to directly replying to it. Perhaps it was not the best place for it.

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

#113

Post by sokoloff »

mdorazio wrote: post #40
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…

The downside for individuals is that a lot of people who frequent this site end up with significantly lower salaries than before (from your downvotes, they don't like that idea). The downside for companies is that you tend to get an overall lower quality product with a lot more managerial overhead required due to the nature of remote/cross-cultural/cross-language development. The downside for America is that the tren…

I doubt offshoring dev work will have a significant effect on US median wage which is around $40K/yr. Devs who move from making $200K to $150K or even $100K to $80K won’t move the needle on median wage.

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

#114

Post by baja_blast »

hawk_ wrote: post #26
Avalaxy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the kind of engineers that command 300k in valley are to be had in Amsterdam for 80k. In India that's possible.

I find that hard to believe, from the engineers I have met I find it very difficult to imagine software built in India working.

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

#116

Post by addicted44 »

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?

Almost every major tech company has massive campuses in India.

So, almost every one of them?

These don't replace their US operations, but add to them and grow them in ways they couldnt in the US itself.

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

#117

Post by manuelabeledo »

the-dude wrote: post #80
bfieidhbrjr wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but Netherlands employees won't do what they're told and are basically unfireable. Not quite as bad as Belgium but not far off.

What do you mean with won't do what they're told ? Disclaimer : am Dutch.

They have _rights_ and everything.

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

#118

Post by simonkafan »

I recently visited Uber's engineering blog (https://eng.uber.com/) and I can't help but it seems they have engineers goofing around with new technology completely useless for their core business ("Look, we now also use meta learning like all the hip kids!")

A company that is swamped with ad revenue money may can afford this but for the rest (especially when they are VC backed) there will come the time when they have to ask themselves if they really need 4000 engineers to maintain the service that brings in the money (= a few apps and a cloud based backend)

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

#119

Post by gdulli »

xwdv wrote: post #12

Why would you hire an $80k Indian when you could easily hire an $80k American from somewhere with lower costs of living than Silicon Valley.

A large American company might need 100 developers and would rather manage one relationship with one agency in India than search for and manage 100 individual distributed Americans.

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

#120

Post by softwaredoug »

game_the0ry wrote: post #105
softwaredoug wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Indian tech labor isn't that cheap. But Silicon Valley tech labor is very expensive (perhaps overpriced!). Maybe the latter is the key factor...

I would argue there is no such thing as overpriced labor when its the market that sets the price. You will never get a Mercedes for the price of a Honda. So be skeptical when a politician or mega corp manager utters the words "labor shortage" - there is no such thing.

Sure, though it takes a bit of time for the actors to become conscious they'll get the same value at a lower price.
Post reply on HN