Reply to: Who said mainframe programmers were safe?

[DodgyAgent]

Trouble with our outsourcers is that they don't know how to say no.

Whereas our contractors dont know how to say yes

[Moscow Mule]

That may be the case but the outsourcers do not walk away from their obligations to service the client.

I sometimes wish they would, instead of pulling the next newly "qualified" body of the street when they lose somebody with some useful experience.

Trouble with our outsourcers is that they don't know how to say no.

[DodgyAgent]

Yes but they replace the competent person with the first person who passed nearby on the street... which indeed is even worst than walking away...

Clearly it is not worse than hiring contractors.

[Francko]

That may be the case but the outsourcers do not walk away from their obligations to service the client.

Yes but they replace the competent person with the first person who passed nearby on the street... which indeed is even worst than walking away...

[expat]

That may be the case but the outsourcers do not walk away from their obligations to service the client.

The parallel here is where a contractor leaves but the agent does not "walk away from his obligations" ......

[oracleslave]

That may be the case but the outsourcers do not walk away from their obligations to service the client.

True. So use of your ROS (and encourage your pimp to help you backfill the role ) is the way forward?

[expat]

To be fair to the Indians at least they dont walk off the job for a better paid/more convenient gig half way through the contract.

Neither do I.

Perhaps some British contractors do, but if you were to judge me on a generalisation about my ethnic group, that would make you racist. Wouldn't it?

[DodgyAgent]

Bollox! Attrition rates at outsourcers are huge

That may be the case but the outsourcers do not walk away from their obligations to service the client.

[Francko]

To be fair to the Indians at least they dont walk off the job for a better paid/more convenient gig half way through the contract.

(if you only knew something about it...)

*oh well perhaps the indians who cannot change the job in UK because their VISA is bound to that company - that I can give it to you...

[oracleslave]

To be fair to the Indians at least they dont walk off the job for a better paid/more convenient gig half way through the contract.

Bollox! Attrition rates at outsourcers are huge

[DodgyAgent]

To be fair to the Indians at least they dont walk off the job for a better paid/more convenient gig half way through the contract.

[NotAllThere]

The biggest factor in the expense of a development is not in performance, it's in maintenance. The latest tools have been saying "eliminate the need for programmers" for years. Yet here we are, still. Development (as opposed to coding) is a skill that's still needed, no matter how sophisticated the packages. A "bad" customiser can still fubar any application. Thereby increasing the cost.

[expat]

I think outsourcing is one threat but IMHO the biggest threat to "good programmers" is actually service orientated applications where companies can basically buy business process management software online, in some cases rendering the need for software engineers redundant. The function to customize it becomes a business analyst function rather that an engineering one.

I think there is a lot of truth in that, but it may not be as bad as it looks. I did quite a few years' highly profitable programming in RPG II, which was one of a whole string of packages supposed to render programmers totally obsolete. It did no such thing, of course, just added another language. Likewise, customising the software will turn out to be more technical than you think, and that's where there will be work.

It is IMHO true that the need for low-level technical programming skill will shrink enormously, already has in fact. There is no longer lots of well-paid work to be had in programming per se, and there never will be again. Customisable packages are much less efficient than good code (or even lousy code, probably!), but that no longer matters when computers are big and fast enough.

[NotAllThere]

...
As for bonuses, why not hold back some or all of them until it is clear that the work has indeed been successful?

Because the people who could authorise such a procedure are the ones getting the bonuses!

[expat]

NotAllThere is right about the difference between good and bad. There are good subcontinentals, but I wouldn't bet on bean-counters' ability to find them.

I would imagine that in fact the skill level is not taken into account, any more than it is by agencies, for whom (mostly) you either "have" a skill or "don't have" it. Interchangeable bodies with standardised skill components.

As for bonuses, why not hold back some or all of them until it is clear that the work has indeed been successful?