Software Engineer: $7,000 a year in China, $8,400 in India... $90,000 in U.S.

[Zzzz1]

Agree with everything but the last lines: there are tons of H1B visa holders coming from India who are by American or European standards rated at best as mediocre. Possibly 10% or less of all H1B Visa holding devs I would call highly intelligent and qualified.

Ever work with a software team from one of those places? Even a small project and you'll understand. Software dev isn't a linear process with lego block employees you plug in. It's not only possible but common for your top dev to be 20 or 30x more productive than your bottom one, and in fact it's very possible to have devs that create negative value because they write buggy software that no-one else can understand to either troubleshoot or extend later on. And that's before you start talking about language barriers (even Indian devs can't really write any ux without it looking odd to Americans), and the hours necessary to develop the specs with literally every conceivable item, and the rework when even that doesn't get you what you wanted, and the cost of not meeting deadlines, and....
There are great software devs in all those places. They aren't making the salary you listed and the best get hired on a visa to come work in the US. But the baseline entry level guys from a pedantic local school are in a different world. I tried offshoring twice, and now pay the market rate for my own in-house developers and am more than happy to do so. My only gripe is that we don't have enough of those good folks here for me to hire!

 

[HeSaidSheSaid]

"
Watch out, coders -- a robot may take your job, too
Researchers warn that a glut of code is coming that will depress wages and turn coders into Uber drivers
"
http://www.infoworld.com/article/28...out-coders-a-robot-may-take-your-job-too.html

 

[Equalizer]

... and b) a mentality in Asia to not speak up nor complain, take a lot of shit by big corps. Both above points imho contribute to a free flow of cheap labor from Asia to the US

Indeed, I know of at least one reasonably sized player in the financial services game (software/data, etc) who predominantly hires "the polite Asian guy" for software dev positions, because whilst the working environment and codebase are crap, they keep their heads down, work hard and don't complain. <trump-tweet-emoji>Sad!<\trump-tweet-emoji>

 

[i960]

A whole team of foreign Sr. Software Engineers in India can be bought for the same price, and they will probably achieve faster results with equal (or better) quality.

I take it you haven't worked with Indian software engineers much.

 

[dealmaker]

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/...ngineer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,13_IM759_KO14,31.htm

 

[R1234]

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/...ngineer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,13_IM759_KO14,31.htm

That's pretty bad - living on $110k in the Bay Area is pretty lean. I think I might have to discourage my kid from wanting to study Computer Science when she enters college.

To be financially comfortable in the US, the next generation will have to think about unique occupations that cannot be easily be replicated internationally or by AI.

Some occupations that cannot easily be offshored or AI'ed:
Lawyers
Doctors/Medical professions
Teachers/Child Therapists
Engineers (Civil or Mechanical) at public works departments

An inevitable truth is that US wages are going down in real terms where eventually there will be a parity of wages globally.

Here is some history of US wages, much of it pre-globalization:

 

[nooby_mcnoob]

Lawyers
Doctors/Medical professions

You're way off. These will be the first to be automated.

Lawyer intuitively understands the probabilities in your case. AI will be much better at this.

Doctors. LOL. There is so much to know that there are very few doctors who can diagnose anything besides the the mainstream stuff in their speciality. AI will murder this.

AI will be a tool to assist and reduce costs. It will be an evolution of how we use computers. What Windows was to operating system, AI will be to... something.

All that being said, you are correct: there is an economic force balancing wages worldwide.

 

[MoneyMatthew]

To start with Indian "software engineers" are completely and utterly overrated. You can safely pick 100 applicants who graduated from IIT (arguably one of the best group of schools in India) and at most 1 applicant floats to the top that you can even remotely consider for a professional role at top firms like Google, FB. That is my own experience at least. I hired developers for my trading desk back in 2010/2011 and wanted only top candidates. What I got was Indian applicants that were full of themselves and their IIT degree, had questionable skill sets and worse experience, could not satisfactory solve simple statistical puzzles, and I simply had to refuse all of them. After I left the firm my boss proudly hired an Indian IIT guy (reportedly one of the top cream available to banks in HK). The guy had to be managed out a few months later due to performance issues I was told. Take all that with a grain of salt but I had very disappointing experiences with Indian "top talent" in the IT sector. I guess the best of the best either study in the US in the first place or move there directly, circumventing Asia but it still was a shocker to see people seemingly coming to the interview with top self-declared pedigrees yet underperform so badly.

Aside that, let me tell you how much developers get here in HK, and I am talking about starting new grads but from the top schools, those with the best education: 21,000 hkd. That's less than 3k usd per month. And this is HK, the most expensive place on earth at the moment to live in. I asked around and was told the reason is that employers can get away with paying so little. There is no collective bargaining power.

So my takeaway is that a) open borders and horrible programs such as the H1B program (that was hijacked from international students in the US by Indian low level coders coming from India) and b) a mentality in Asia to not speak up nor complain, take a lot of shit by big corps. Both above points imho contribute to a free flow of cheap labor from Asia to the US

Not to get off topic but my experience with Indian software engineers is to never be humble or show weakness around them, they might have for example a solid foundation in Java and that is where their knowledgebase is but watch them fail if .Net is required, this is just one example. If they detect you are weak in any area then they will beat you over the head with it. Venture outside of their knowledge zone and watch them shut up/crumble. It is nice to deal with developers who just level with each other to get things built. It seems like having to explain yourself twice is just par for the course with Indian developers. I have had to argue with Chinese people over money for software but never explain myself twice on how things work as I have done with Indians, it is all part of their game. They put in the work and can make it happen/get projects done but sometimes I have noticed White Americans automatically think a developer is at an advanced level simply because they are Indian. Just my $.02. Sometimes the hype is unfounded.... Cause righteous laws are overdue And this is a message that the Ruler Rick threw And it's true

 

[Zzzz1]

Cannot agree more. Perfectly described. I read that almost 80% of the entire legal work is comprised of research that can be easily performed by AI now or soonish

You're way off. These will be the first to be automated.

Lawyer intuitively understands the probabilities in your case. AI will be much better at this.

Doctors. LOL. There is so much to know that there are very few doctors who can diagnose anything besides the the mainstream stuff in their speciality. AI will murder this.

AI will be a tool to assist and reduce costs. It will be an evolution of how we use computers. What Windows was to operating system, AI will be to... something.

All that being said, you are correct: there is an economic force balancing wages worldwide.

 

[ET180]

To the OP, this is nothing new. The wage gap between US software developer and overseas software developer has been this way for decades. So why have not all jobs gone overseas?

Agree with everything but the last lines: there are tons of H1B visa holders coming from India who are by American or European standards rated at best as mediocre. Possibly 10% or less of all H1B Visa holding devs I would call highly intelligent and qualified.

I agree with that. I have seen many software engineers here on H1B that do not have a special skill that cannot be found domestically. It's more about the employer having more leverage over the employee -- the employer doesn't just cover salary, but the employee's ability to stay in the US. Also, it's harder to change jobs on an H1B or negotiate for a higher salary. Employers want indentured servitude.

Aside that, let me tell you how much developers get here in HK, and I am talking about starting new grads but from the top schools, those with the best education: 21,000 hkd. That's less than 3k usd per month. And this is HK, the most expensive place on earth at the moment to live in. I asked around and was told the reason is that employers can get away with paying so little. There is no collective bargaining power.

I'm not sure it's collective bargaining power. Most software engineers in the US are not in a union.