My Job Went To India

Josh Skillings writes "The author, Chad Fowler, draws upon his experiences as a software engineer, a team leader over a group of Indian developers, and as a jazz musician, to describe 52 ways or tips that will help you to become a more valuable employee. These tips are described in two or three pages each, and are usually illustrated by a practical example or story. The tips are well thought-out, well-explained and make sense. Chad draws upon the open source movement as well, highlighting ways that contributing to and learning from open source can improve your career. These tips gave me greater respect and appreciation for the open source movement in general." Read on for the rest of Josh's review.

My Job Went To India (and All I Got was This Lousy Book)
author	Chad Fowler
pages	185
publisher	The Pragmatic Bookshelf
rating	8
reviewer	Josh Skillings
ISBN	0-9766940-1-8
summary	Offers 52 ways you can keep your software engineering job, or grow yourself into an even better job.

Chad encourages the you to think of your career as life cycle of a product, and as such divides the 52 tips into the four areas of "Choosing Your Market", "Invest in your Product", "Execute", and "Market", and then two extra groups called, "Maintaining Your Edge", and "If you Can't Beat 'Em". This grouping works surprisingly well and provides an overarching context that makes sense. Many of the tips have specific calls to action at the end, which are useful if you don't already have ideas on how to apply the tip.

For example, under "Choosing Your Market", tip #7 "Don't Put Your Eggs In Someone Else's Basket", Chad encourages you to refrain from learning vendor-specific technologies that can disappear with the vendor, and then calls you to action by suggesting you write a small project in a technology that competes with the technology you are used to using. This will help you understand why the technology exists to start with and what opens your horizons for what might be coming next.

Under the section "Investing in your Product", tip #14 called "Practice, Practice, Practice", Chad offers suggestions on how software engineers can get even better by specific kinds of focused practice. The action items at the end of the section suggests practicing "Code Katas" katas similar to martial artists, but instead in code and in different languages.

With 52 tips, this book has a lot of tips, a tip for every week of the year, but you should expect to spend much longer than a week on most of them. A few of the tips you are probably doing already, but many of them you aren't. Some of the tips are fairly straight forward and easy to put in to practice. You could spend your entire life attempting and never achieve some of the other tips, such as tip #39, "Release Your Code." The ultimate goal of this tip is to be able to say in a job interview, "Oh, are you running Nifty++? I can help you with that- I wrote it." Chances are this scenario won't ever happen to you, but by working towards this goal in the ways the book outlines, you will definitely become a better, more valuable software engineer. Many of the tips will make you a better person in general, regardless of your career, such as tip #28, "Learn How To Fail", where Chad emphasizes how to fail gracefully and the rewards that can be learned from failure. This wide range of time, difficult, and application of the tips gives you something to work on today, next week, and next year.

The title of the book is silly. Yes, it was catchy enough for me to notice in the bookstore, with the red cover and the homeless (software engineer?) holding a sign, "Will Code For Food". So from that point of view, the cover worked. However, unless you've read the book, you might think it's as campy as the cover and wonder if it is somehow anti-Indian. I think a better title would be along the lines of "How to Get Any Job You Want", since if you can master all of these tips, you'll be the best there ever was.

While I didn't expect any specific technical advice, I would have liked some. I understand that an author needs to be sensitive to how fast technology changes, however just one tip with a warning: "This information is my opinion on April 11, 2007 and will probably change tomorrow". And then describes about how Subversion is a great tool, Python is a great language to learn, and learning design patterns can make your life easier, would have been appreciated. A tip like this would help you to understand the author a bit better and further encourage you to learn more.

If you want to improve yourself and you can accept advice, this book is for you. You will find things you can do better and skills you've never considered. Like some of the other Pragmatic Programmer books, I will never be able to master everything in this book, so I'll be reading this book again and again, trying to get better every time. Don't let the cover put you off, this is a great book.

You can purchase My Job Went To India (and All I Got was This Lousy Book) from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

They took my job

They took my job; they took my job; they took my job.

The American companies are to blame, it has nothing to do with America or India. If Dell, HP, GE outsource to India, don't buy their products anymore. Simple as that. But don't blame the poor people over there trying to make a living with what the CEO of Dell does.

Anyway, Python is a great tool, yeah.

Re:They took my job

Also, start your own company and show what you can do, let it become a battle on your turf, make it about software and products, not about bottom lines and the bosses fancy yacht and head count. The US was built by entrepreneurs, it's time to start building again!

Same goes for anyone else in any other country where a crap company outsources your job or your mates jobs from a company you helped build. Start up your own company, it's the best way to 1. get back 2. do things your way.

Re:They took my job

How naive can you get? As if entrepreneurial talent grows on trees or can be evoked by Anthony Robbins. As if people aren't at certain points in their life where such risk is unacceptable. As if financing a venture is as simple as breaking open a piggy bank. Yes, America provides some modicum of equality of opportunity, but it's disgustingly condescending to pretend that everyone has the necessary resources or latent talent (or capacity to develop such talent) to pursue those opportunities. If only the poor would just get off their asses and work, eh old boy? The "If you don't like it, just start up a business" line of thinking is just a roundabout way of blaming the victim, and a blanketed insult to boot.

Re:They took my job

Yeah... and it sounds like by the time you are through that you
might as well just go into business for yourself, throw off the
shackles of corporate America and take home a bigger part of the
value of your labor.

If you've got to start thinking/acting like a small businessman
in order to hold onto your w-2 job then you might as well BE a
small businessman.

Those kinds of skills are FAR more valuable outside the cubicle.

Re:They took my job

This is exactly right. If you have to gain all these other "soft skills" or business skills in order to just be a regular software engineer, then why keep working for someone else? One of the main reasons for being an employee is because it's (supposed to be) both easier and safer than striking out on your own. Instead of long hours and having to wear many hats, you can just concentrate on your own skill, and leave the business stuff to the people who specialize in that. Anyone familiar with the idea of specialized labor should understand this. The downside is (supposed to be) your pay is lower than it could potentially be by owning and operating your own business.

If today's corporations want their regular rank-and-file employees to wear many hats, be multi-talented, and have a lot of business skills, then they're simply not doing their own jobs correctly.

Re:They took my job

I read it. He does talk about outsourcing a lot in the book. However he talks about it like it's the weather, not with an agenda. "yes it sucks but here are things you can do to better your self to avoid this happening to you." The author was actually a programmer that had to spend a lot of time in India hiring people that would be doing out sourced work for his company. So there are also several stories about things that he found to be different (not better or worse but different) about India and Indian programmers.

The focus of the book is definitely becoming a better programmer but out sourcing is used to show what a business needs and wants in a programmer.

Re:They took my job

Rather than reading The World is Flat, have someone hit you over the head with it. The experience will be equally revelatory, but in the end, less painful.

(Anybody who thinks that the United States can somehow maintain a lead (in education, ability, know-how, etc) over the top 20% of Indians and Chinese is delusional, that 20% is more people than live in the U.S. The U.S. will compete and succeed just fine, but the idea that it will be the center of enterprise in this century that it was last century is not supported by reality)

No Chapter On The "Failed Off-Shoring"??

Maybe the author should stop by where I work. He can talk to the people they are hiring *back* after the off-shore company ripped us off for millions giving us crap code which was basically unsupportable written by the "experts".

Re:No Chapter On The "Failed Off-Shoring"??

Lol, that's their own fault. The managers probably said: "code me something that does x" instead of "code me something that we can support" or the sales person offered: we can do your coding project for USD XXXXX which appeared cheaper than what they were paying for the local coders. The long term cost of course, they didn't plan for.

I had something similar happen at one of the companies I used to work for a while ago (precision measurement instruments for industrial processes). They outsourced their lab and prototyping to China as to profit from the cheap scientists. As soon as the branch in China got hold of the blueprints of quite some high tech products (5 and up digit retail value) the whole department literally vanished. Nothing was heard from them for a while until somebody went over just to see an empty building with the offices. All original equipment was still there, the people had started their own little company selling the same product for a lot less down the road, they took all the contacts and copies of plans with them.

four words

"Get a security clearance".

Those jobs aren't going to India.

Inflation in India

12%

An indian software engineer can earn about 400,000 rupees ($10k)at the moment. In 10 years that will match the west, but long before then the difference will be too marginal to make it worth offshoring.
 

Re:Too late...

...and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!

Re:Too late...

...and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!

...which was made in China.

Re:Okay....

you're labeled as a failure and you're fucked for a very long time

Aren't those two things universally exclusive? Unless you're a hooker, in which case both would apply.

Re:I'm sorry...

...but if your job went to India, you're expendable. Learn some new skills, get better at what you do, etc.

what an insensitive BS answer!

I'm an expert in my field, I have over 20 yrs doing what I do (netmgt) and yet companies are not respecting actual field experience anymore - they prefer to cheap-out EVERY TIME ;(

there is nothing I can do about it. 'get better' at what I do? I'm already a leader in my company, for this technology.

actually, my job didn't go to india. it went to 'eastern europe' (country name withheld). the labor is MUCH cheaper there but I'm not at all convinced they have better experience or understanding of the field. it was PURELY for cost reasons.

when its for cost reasons, there is nothing an employee can do. can I live on the same pay rate that east europe can live on? surely, I can't (I live in the US).

no matter how you cut it, its unfair and its NOT the employee's fault. grow up and you'll see this - and stop blaming US workers, its NOT our fault most of the time. its the bean counters.

Re:I'm sorry...

amazing. your whole post was 'stop whining'. what a content-free post!

No, the content was "stop whining" AND "value is not based on what you think it ought to be".

I'm a principle engineer with a few decades of field experience. I'm far from entry-level yet you tell me to 'grow up'?

Damn straight. Apparently you have a mistaken notion that the world owes you something for having a "few decades" of experience. I'm sure the buggy-whip makers with decades of experience were pissed off when they were no longer able to make as much money.

even if I'm the best contributor in my field, if the bean counters are swayed by cost and cost alone, this is a losing battle.

If you're the best contributor in your field, and that's not enough for someone to pay you what *YOU* think you're worth, then -- shock -- do something else that's more valuable. The world changes. Adapt or perish.

clearly you have not lived this experience. YOU grow up and then you'll see it, first hand.

You're right, I haven't lived this experience -- primarily because I've adapted my working knowledge to the world as it has changed (If I was still doing what I was doing 20 years ago, I'd be making peanuts). But if, for some reason, I found myself left high and dry because my particular niche wasn't as valuable, I assure you I wouldn't be blaming the "bean counters". I would be looking at the market to see what *was* making money. In fact, I typically do that anyway.

Re:I'm sorry...

Actually, it is your attitude.

When you are shopping, do you always buy the cheapest clothes, vegetables, meat, shampoo, magazines, etc? No you don't, and neither does the "bean counters." In fact, they are real persons with real emotions, you know. They try to take rational decisions in the best interest of the company. If they were bean counters, they would count beans, and you would be a bean counted. Is that the value you place on your work?

Kalvin Klein isn't worried that people will stop buying his 200$ shirts just because 5$ shirts works just fine. He is perfectly capable of projecting an image making consumers spend 195$ more and believing that it was worth it. Your job is the same. Your price tag is 10x of theirs, can you have them believe that it is worth it? Can the Indians be on site within an hour? Can they write legible English documentation? Can they talk about a problem of strategic importance over a lunch with the boss? Can they chit-chat about the game during coffee breaks?

You say that you are "the best contributor in my field," does anyone but Slashdot readers know that? If not, then you have no one but yourself to blame.

You're not looking at this systemically

I entirely agree that individually you need to be as valuable as possible. That's why all the CCNPs I know are working to finish their CCIEs and the CCIEs are working on their Juniper/Avaya certs. All of this is on top of their technical degrees.

The problem is that you and your "invaluable" skills really aren't being taken into account. It doesn't matter if firing you would cripple the company because we're typically thinking 90 days at a time. If you replace a $150K CCIE with a $20K wanna-be, then you as a manager can claim a $130K dollar "savings." Hooray for you, here's your bonus.

When that $20K wonder takes all of your customers down -- and here's the beauty part -- you aren't blamed for it. No one is currently drawing the line between your $130K savings and the customers that walked with their millions of dollars.

The really scary part? I frequently work on municipal, hospital and 911 systems. Infrastructure disasters here can cost lives. I've watched the cheap guys take down emergency systems, and I tried not to think about the calls that were getting dropped as I fought to get them back online. I push the frantic calls for help out of my mind, because if I let my imagination run with what an unanswered 911 call could mean...

The cheap guy's response as I berated him for putting lives at risk? Basically, what do I care? It's not my country.

Every one of the guys I know are putting in 60-hours weeks routinely. Hours like that mean divorces. They mean early heart attacks. They mean neglected children left to raise themselves. They mean broken homes with the societal carnage that goes with it.

It's the classic tragedy of the commons. The people who lead our country are insulated from the carnage associated with gutting our workforce. In the meantime, my country is falling apart. I've got a CS degree from a prestigious college, a CCIE, and a decade of international experience and even I am feeling the heat. I weep for those not as lucky as I.

We're gutting our middle class. We just are, and if you don't see it, it's probably because you're young. I hear your "Well, it's not a problem if you're the best of the best" bravado, and I wonder what you propose to do with the other 99% percent of the population, because they're not just going to just disappear.

I was downtown during the LA Riots of '92. Rodney King and Daryl Gates might have been the spark that set it off, but that riot burned on the fuel of unemployed people. Last time I was in LA, more than a decade later, the damage still hadn't been repaired.

I'd really prefer not to see that happen on a country-wide scale. But me and the other gray-hairs are worried, especially the people I know out in LA. We're getting that "vibe" again.

Things are stretched beyond breaking. Our teachers have flat-out given up. Our cops are showing the sort of violent and unstable behavior you would expect from PTSD. The wave of earnest enlistees that flooded the military after 9/11 have become the sort of weary jaded bastards that could put the most burned-out Vietnam Vet to shame.

We are, for the first time in history, routinely using mercenaries in almost every level of our military and law enforcement. I'm seeing military families, families with generations of service, hang up their uniforms and forbid their children from serving.

Our hospitals are literally allowing people to die from neglect in the ER. Our bridges are falling down. Our electrical grid is one snapped breaker from going dark.

Katrina should have been our moment of clarity. The fact that it so clearly wasn't scares me to death.

But you go ahead, and keep humming that "I'm the best, I'm the best, I'm the best" mantra. Keep closing your eyes as tight as you can and shut your ears tighter. Find a good teddy bear, because the old man, the old man has seen all this before.

I'm terrified of where this train is going.

Re:At least for software developers

We outsourced to India ... and are now scrapping and rewriting in-house ....

The code works but ... trying to change anything with the time differences involved is a nightmare, it does not matter who they are just where they are ...

Re:At least for software developers

The problem with outsourcing in general is that you change the business
relationship between what used to be internal customers and internal
providers to one where you've got some outside company with interests
that are probably completely different than your own.

You're no longer a cohesive team. Those other people will not necessarily
pull together for you anymore. They will have their own bosses and their
own sucess metrics.

Your relationship will be defined by a contract that is designed to
prevent you from abusing them too much. Processes will have to be
formalized far better. Changes will be far more tightly controlled.

Depending on the project, it may be dramatically more expensive to
outsource (like something with insane dev schedules).

Re:At least for software developers

What I noticed in my experiences with code written by outsourced coders was that while it worked, it just wasn't that good. They knew the LANGUAGE, but they didn't know how to PROGRAM. Not very well, anyway.

While working with the outsourced coders for a client of a managed hosting company I was sent a 250-line SQL query (for MySQL, no less) and asked why the query was running so slow. It was a mess. The guy obviously didn't understand SQL or database design and was using brute force to get the data.

Re:Doesn't OSS Make it Worse?

Are you a Microsoft astroturfer? You sure sound like one.

OSS increases the total size of the market, providing more jobs for software engineers. The only companies OSS is bad for is software companies like MS, that have a business model built on proprietary software.

Personally, I work at a semiconductor company developing Linux kernel code to support our products. If OSS didn't exist, we would either have to contract outside companies to develop firmware for us, which would be inefficient and very expensive, making our product probably not viable in the marketplace. Quite likely, many, many products simply wouldn't exist without the presence of OSS.

Imagine a world where almost everyone was illiterate, because a few ivory towers held all the dictionaries and books about written language, and only allowed people to see these books for a high fee. There wouldn't be any writers/authors out there, and all the other industries that rely on written communication simply wouldn't exist. Having access to these tools for free or cheap (remember, education is free in most developed countries) makes the size of the overall market much larger. It's the same way for OSS. Unfortunately, there's some companies like MS who don't like this state of affairs, and want to keep everything secret and under their control.

Re:First arrival

I'd say it would depend on what stage of your career you are in, and what responsibilities you either have or think you might end up having.

If you are in your early 20s, and want to have a family, or own a house definitely change to something that will help you 20 years from now when you are in your 40s. Given the globalization issues, I wouldn't recommend putting all your eggs into any job that could be done through an internet pipe.

I'm in my late 40s, the mortgage is over halfway paid off, and there's no kids to worry about. Worse case is that I lose my permanent position job (for whatever reason), and have to take a pay cut, or do temporary consulting at bargain rates.

I chose IT 25 years ago because I knew it would afford me a nice standard of living, that at least for the foreseeable future there likely would be a job that would pay enough to cover the kind of house I wanted to live in, and leave a little extra for vacations, emergencies, retirement, weddings, etc. It worked out, but I wouldn't recommend it for someone starting their career today. It's definitely a sad state of affairs.

I'd say that one could learn to do something that you can't outsource, like nursing - but even that isn't guaranteed. Many of those jobs are being "insourced" - that is people from developing countries are being hired here at a lower rate than what us locals are willing to bear.

I guess the best bet (if you don't want to deal with the uncertainty of working for yourself) is for whatever you decide to do, to find a job working for a small company that has a good business model. One, which as part of its culture, tries to keep money local -including the money that it pays to its employees. One that really doesn't have the resources to outsource or sponsor people for insourcing.

Re:First arrival

I know of very few programmers who can effectively administer.

I know of very few administrators who can effecively "code"

Okay, next topic.

Re:First arrival

Obviously you don't know many attorneys.

Fact is, very few high-level jobs let you work 40 hours a week. Just the way it is. You're right on one point though, there are certainly no worries about overtime.