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

161–170 of 225 posts

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

#161

Post by bronzeage »

Only problem is that the whole software / tech company facade is what held the whole bubble going. You can't keep insane valuations when you're just a taxi company hiring cheap engineers to develop an app.

There has been a growing bubble of using software and apps and pretending to "disrupt" traditional real world markets that has been there for years. I suspect a big part of that bubble was dunning-kroger effect of software engineer's arrogance, investors extravagance, and willingness to burn cash fueled by prior experience with actual software companies which spilled over to optimism about being able to do the same in traditional markets.

AirBnB, Uber, Lyft, Grubhub, other food delivery apps, WeWork, Tesla. They are all examples of what happens when you judge a traditional business from the rose tinted glasses of software companies, almost ignoring the efficient market hypothesis about these traditional businesses long before these "disruptors" came along, while exaggerating the value the software part really provides.

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

#162

Post by bluGill »

illuminati1911 wrote: post #60
hawk_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Indians who are on that level are not going to be in India, but they are already in SV or Europe.

Many have returned back home, or got to that level locally and don't want to leave.

The Indians I've worked with who returned say they did it because life was easier. Sure they make less money on India, but in India servants come every day to cook and clean (for about 60 cents a day). As one guy said "I know how to cook, but I didn't realize I'd be cooking every meal"

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

#163

Post by hawk_ »

adwww wrote: post #74
hawk_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does 300k buy talent and experience, or 60 hour weeks and people with no outside interests? The best engineers I've ever worked with were definetly not making that sort of money, mostly because they were the sort of people that didn't like going to interviews and were more interested in tinkering with their side projects and hobbies than competative careers.

I very specifically avoided any qualitative judgement on skill in my comment. "Kind" includes all the qualities SV firms are after. Whether they are the best at what they do or not isn't the point.

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

#164

Post by blocked_again »

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.

There is definitely a shortage of good quality Engineers in SF. That's the key reason why the engineering salary is so high. Also the weird housing laws.

The same engineer who is making 30k in India makes 5 or 6 times the salary when moved to the SF office. Similarly the Engineer who makes 200k+ in SF gets 4 or 5 times less when moved back to India.

Comparing Mercedes to Honda is not the right comparison. There are good and bad engineers in both the US and India. So why pay 150k+ for a Honda in US when you can get the same Honda in India for 30k.

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

#165

Post by vnnkov »

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.

You literally could buy mercedes for price which could have 2 times difference based on location.

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

#166

Post by treis »

ForHackernews wrote: post #157
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #64

This is kind of about whether Uber views itself as a FAANG type software company (software as core competency, strong recruiting brand for tech-hub engineers) or a more operational business (software as a cost center). Most companies end up having to choose one. If you're the latter, you absolutely don't try competing with FAANG for the same talent. (I do think Amazon is a rare example of a company that both develope…

I don't see any reason (except for juicing their valuation) to consider Uber as a software company. Their product is not software: it's taxi cabs. A ride hailing app is more or less a commodity, see all the Uber clones out there: Lyft, Gett, Arro, Flywheel, Kapten...

>Uber as a software company. Their product is not software: it's taxi cabs.

That's not accurate. They have software to match riders to drivers while optimally setting the price of the trip based on the current demand/supply. It has to work in many different cities while preventing fraud and/or gaming of the system. It's a legitimately hard engineering problem that requires sophisticated software solutions.

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

#167

Post by bluGill »

luspr wrote: post #47

My feeling is that best Indian software engineers are in the US (or even Europe) already. I have great Indian and Pakistani colleagues at my company, but we had very mixed results with outsourcing.

You need to be very controlling with outsourcing. You cannot just hire resumes, you need to carefully interview to ensure that they can do what is claimed and be hands on to watch the work.

There are great people in India, but you have work to find them.

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

#168

Post by blocked_again »

rootusrootus wrote: post #122
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...

More remote work, and hire outside of SV then. There's a pretty big benefit to keeping the dev teams in time zones with a good amount of overlap. Probably the second biggest factor in our difficulty getting good results from our dev teams in Hyderabad is the 12 hour offset. The single biggest is that if you go to India looking to save money, you're going to be in for some pain. Good talent has a cost no matter where…

Wonder how long it takes for the company to move the entire/majority engineering team to India or Eastern Europe to avoid the time difference issues.

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

#169

Post by godzillabrennus »

greesil wrote: post #84
godzillabrennus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying $80k a year in India would get you top level talent. They’d pay less than that. Uber is preparing for a death spiral as their financial backing runs out and they need to shrink to the profitable markets.

Nitpicking a bit, it's not a death spiral if they don't die in the end.

Contemplated changing that wording before posting but decided that it’s a bit of a ship of Theseus thought exercise.

If Uber radically shifts its focus to focus solely on smaller profitable markets and the people working there are swapped out then has the company ultimately failed/died and had to be reborn?

It may not be a General Magic style death but it seemed reasonable to me that at least philosophically it is a death spiral nonetheless.

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

#170

Post by bluGill »

frandroid wrote: post #56
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.

In spite of the current remote-work revolution allegedly happening, most companies still want an office with workings coming physically so developers can be tracked and teams can bond and share knowledge. You'll be able to hire an Indian team that will come to an office in Pune or Bangalore, but you probably won't be able to assemble a great team in South Bend or Fort Wayne.

Sure you can. Of course pune has 10 times as many people (including those not in the city but close enough to commute), which limits things. I work in a city much smaller and we have several different great teams of engineers.

Kids who grow up here are excited to bring their degree back close to their family. We have no problem relocating people from other parts of the US, when they need a job and look they realize our small city has what they need, and while the exact attractions are different and lesser, they are still good enough.

Post reply on HN