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

211–220 of 225 posts

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

#211

Post by jbay808 »

ballenf wrote: post #210
jbay808 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what concept is the word "shortage" supposed to communicate?

"The best people applying for our open positions keep rejecting our salary offers and turnover is high despite regular 2% pay rises."

No, I mean, non-sarcastically, what concept is it intended to communicate?

Is it not possible for a market economy to have a food shortage? Just a price of food at which some people happen to starve to death?

No programmer shortage, but just a price of programmers at which some business opportunities fail to be profitable?

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

#212

Post by belltaco »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #18
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)?

Would you pay $300 for an item costing $150 if you use the item to make something more than $300 of value?

Didn't think so.

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

#213

Post by kerbs »

Jommi wrote: post #195
tarsinge wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real question for me is why would Uber investors put the kind of management that view software as a cost center? In this context that's a pessimistic signal for their future, at least for their current valuation, if not the sign of a death spiral.

Because they are competing against competitors with equal level of product but with majority od developers in low labor cost countries. Thats a recipe for sure loss.

In the US the only real competition is Lyft, who is definitely not treating software as a cost center.

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

#214

Post by rimliu »

adrr wrote: post #203
rimliu wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody will have self-driving taxi service in a couple of years, maybe not even in 20.

Waymo is running driverless taxis in Arizona and has approval from California to go full driverless(L4). They inked a deal for 20,000 cars and a leased a factory in Detroit to install the sensor equipment. Why would they spend that amount of capital if it wasn’t a few years away? https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/27/17165992/waymo-jaguar-i-p...

Hype.

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

#215

Post by naruvimama »

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.

An engineer at 80K in Europe would be working on their own. Whereas in India they could be running a team, so much greater leverage.

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

#216

Post by naruvimama »

rubber_duck wrote: post #63
0xcafecafe wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In my experience working with outsourcing agencies - "talent available" in India is filling headcount numbers. Good developers ask for similar wages as EU based ones and are equally hard to find, probably even harder because the market is filled with scammers (eg. on several occasions I would interview a competent guy and then the work would clearly get delegated to someone inexperienced)

When you pay per hour per head by designation, that is what businesses optimize for - inflation.

I have worked in one, 80% of the work is in making the managers both India & American look good to upper management.

India is also a huge market for uber.

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

#217

Post by Jommi »

kerbs wrote: post #213
Jommi wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they are competing against competitors with equal level of product but with majority od developers in low labor cost countries. Thats a recipe for sure loss.

In the US the only real competition is Lyft, who is definitely not treating software as a cost center.

Well, im not sure about that. You should look at their hiring page right now and see that they are heavily increasing their presence in european tech centers.

Additionally, Uber is focusing on being a global superapp company, not just the US (its just their cash cow).

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

#218

Post by naruvimama »

People seem to forget that India itself is a huge market, and doing well in India could help innovate for the rest of the world.

This not an American bank outsourcing legacy systems for maintenance, so the usual experience is irrelevant.

Let us remember that uber has engineering teams in countries, where they are not allowed to run a car pooling businesses.

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

#219

Post by naruvimama »

IntelMiner wrote: post #132
designium wrote: post #59

I think it's not a dichotomy if it's good or bad, when you think from which stakeholder perspective you are using, the answer is diametrically opposite: "Outsourcing devs to India" - this may be an oversimplification - Shareholders: Saving money, more money to Shareholders pocket hopefully - Management: Decreasing costs, better path to achieve xyz goals; therefore easier to meet bonus targets - Dev team: Increasing u…

I'd be wary about the Consumers and Users "not caring". Depending on the size of the company, there's definitely a lot of negative sentiment to seeing "jobs" sent overseas, regardless of where the positions actually are When things do go wrong, there's a bit of an attitude of "of course it broke, they sent all the jobs overseas!"

India is also a huge market, also one with huge growth potential.

People living in advanced economies growing at 2% do not seem to realise that the growth that they need for their survival actually come from developing countries growing at 6-7% actually adding assets, or store of value.

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

#220

Post by ckdarby »

jupp0r wrote: post #139
ckdarby wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That $80k American is at a higher chance of leaving for opportunities domestically. Who is paying domestically $80k or +$80k/year in India? Probably just FANNG. I live in Canada and my assumption would be payroll & state taxes would be less in India compared to USA. There is also the advantage of having great leverage over a country when being a big fish in a smaller pool like in India.

> That $80k American is at a higher chance of leaving for opportunities domestically. From anecdotal experience, turnover is much higher in India. Changing jobs every 2 years seems to be the standard way of advancing your career and getting a good raise.

How many people do you know in India making +$80k/Year switching jobs every 2 years?
Post reply on HN