Well, I was the "asshole" that lead the outsourcing (read, not exactly off-shoring) RFP and vendor analysis that resulted in 3k IT people losing their jobs (transferred to the vendor and then summarily dumped). It was one of my "less proud of" moments. But even today, I believed it had to be done.
As a *technologist* and a person, it pains me that people with 10-20-30 year experience being let go. However, the function was costing 2-3x the industry norm, with annual budget > $100M, and growing (as the systems become more and more legacy). An internal rewrite was costed at at least $400M (and the business won't pony up for that), so we started look outside. Sure, the final deal won't save the firm too much money, but it gives a lot of budgetary *certainty*. However, I was overruled (by the CIO), I preferred a vendor that was "competent", and he wanted "cheap", to put it bluntly. And the deal was signed over a #$%! $9M a year difference in price. Naturally, I resigned, and the deal blew up.
Yep, I had a spreadsheet with all the functions, all the heads counts, all the previous 3 years budget. And I was expected to "high-level" (circle in red) what groups that should be "sourced". It was, I admit, the hardest 48 hours I ever spent in my life. I know that with 60-70% certainty, any group that I circle (!) would be done.
Which is why I am trading today, much less casualties.
Quote from jason_l:
Decent experienced developers in the midwest are making 80-120k a year. Unlike NYC, one can live quite nicely here on that It's not i-bank work, let alone quant stuff, and academic credentials only matter for interns
offshoring: It's a pipe dream. I was a Sr manager for an IT services company with over 3000 salaried employees in India, and EVERY project to my knowledge that we used them on blew up on us and cost us dearly. They would never admit this in public, let alone during shareholders meetings And to this day day they brag about the "seemless integration of offshore capabilities" as a core and unique competency in every press release, proposal, and shareholders communication they put together. Others I talk to have similiar experiences. People buy into this crack-pipe dream either out of greed or fear, but not reality ...
