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

kmiklas

kmiklas

This fact has me rubbing my eyes in disbelief.

How can a financial case possibly be made for hiring a U.S. Software Engineer? Perhaps for a rock star like Bjarne Stroustrup, but for the vast majority, forget it. 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'm trying to understand this from an economic perspective:

- Why is there such a huge difference in compensation levels?
- The end result is zero demand for U.S. technology professionals. Is this where things are headed?
- Faced with these facts, what student would possibly go into any technology field?
- Is it because the dollar is so strong?
- Is there no economic check against this?
- If this keeps up, in 20 years, the U.S. will be essentially devoid of technology professionals.
- Have Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields become a commodity?
- Is this an economic attack?

This whole thing smells very fishy to me.

If anyone could shed any light on this reality, I would appreciate it.

Thank you.

Reference:
https://www.thebalance.com/how-outsourcing-jobs-affects-the-u-s-economy-3306279
http://www.bitnavi.com/uncategorized/say-goodbye-to-tech-jobs-in-the-us/
 
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Where in China can you get a software engineer for 7000USD a year ? In Shenzhen a maid or a secretary usually costs more than that
 
luisHK said:
Where in China can you get a software engineer for 7000USD a year ? In Shenzhen a maid or a secretary costs more than that
More...
It's in the first reference, after the pic of the people with headsets on.
 
They say 7000 for entry level IT worker, not software engineer.
Is that the same ?
For entry level jobs it's possible I suspect in tier 2 or 3 cities.
In SZ friends complain clueless new graduates ask for well over 1000 a months for the most basic office positions, especially if they can speak half understandable broken english, than they have a hard time keeping employees even when they pay them the asked salaries.
I doubt Shanghai and Beijing are any better.
 
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According to PayScale, the price range for a Senior Software Engineer in India is Rs 413,206 - Rs 1,281,614 (USD $6202 = $20,158), depending on experience. The title of my post is an apples-to-apples comparison of entry-level salaries.
http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Senior_Software_Engineer/Salary

Given these data, a Senior Software Engineer in India (a 90+% percentile rank high-performer with at least 10 yrs of experience) is about 20% the price of an ENTRY-LEVEL Software Engineer in the United States! :confused:

How is there any hope at all for a STEM professional in the U.S.
 
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US entry level is $90,000??

In the UK entry level (just out of uni) pay for a Software engineer is about half that, or even less.
 
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I notice the title "engineer" gets tossed around nonchalantly outside the US for tech-level positions, even in places like the UK and Australia.
 
southall said:
US entry level is $90,000??

In the UK entry level (just out of uni) pay for a Software engineer is about half that, or even less.
More...

I agree. For an experienced software engineer for specialized applications, $90K annual pay might be possible but definitely NOT for entry-level software engineer basically a programmer fresh out of college. Nowadays with many programming language so well-know and easy to learn now, it is HIGHLY doubtful that one can command $90K for programming position. I see many ads of people offering to code for free.
 
kmiklas said:
This fact has me rubbing my eyes in disbelief.

How can a financial case possibly be made for hiring a U.S. Software Engineer? Perhaps for a rock star like Bjarne Stroustrup, but for the vast majority, forget it. 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'm trying to understand this from an economic perspective:

- Why is there such a huge difference in compensation levels?
- The end result is zero demand for U.S. technology professionals. Is this where things are headed?
- Faced with these facts, what student would possibly go into any technology field?
- Is it because the dollar is so strong?
- Is there no economic check against this?
- If this keeps up, in 20 years, the U.S. will be essentially devoid of technology professionals.
- Have Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields become a commodity?
- Is this an economic attack?

This whole thing smells very fishy to me.

If anyone could shed any light on this reality, I would appreciate it.

Thank you.

Reference:
https://www.thebalance.com/how-outsourcing-jobs-affects-the-u-s-economy-3306279
http://www.bitnavi.com/uncategorized/say-goodbye-to-tech-jobs-in-the-us/
More...
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!
 
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

kmiklas said:
This fact has me rubbing my eyes in disbelief.

How can a financial case possibly be made for hiring a U.S. Software Engineer? Perhaps for a rock star like Bjarne Stroustrup, but for the vast majority, forget it. 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'm trying to understand this from an economic perspective:

- Why is there such a huge difference in compensation levels?
- The end result is zero demand for U.S. technology professionals. Is this where things are headed?
- Faced with these facts, what student would possibly go into any technology field?
- Is it because the dollar is so strong?
- Is there no economic check against this?
- If this keeps up, in 20 years, the U.S. will be essentially devoid of technology professionals.
- Have Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields become a commodity?
- Is this an economic attack?

This whole thing smells very fishy to me.

If anyone could shed any light on this reality, I would appreciate it.

Thank you.

Reference:
https://www.thebalance.com/how-outsourcing-jobs-affects-the-u-s-economy-3306279
http://www.bitnavi.com/uncategorized/say-goodbye-to-tech-jobs-in-the-us/
More...
 
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