Peekaboo Switchback

I was in Hyderabad recently and went to see the hightec city. It was quite impressive. I am curious to know if these well paid engineers are still hoping to move to the US. Onething I heard was that most engineers there feel that they only get paid a fraction of what they would've gotten paid over here in the US and that they will have better opportunities to move up in their careers here in the US. Is this true?

A somewhat related incident happened to my friend. He was asked for an interview and after he showed up for the interview, 10 min. into it, the interviewer got the word from someone in the office that the job my friend was interviewing for was already filled. No apologies, nothing. My friend was asked to leave. I think engineers should form a union.

Capablanca,
I agree. It doesn't make sense w.r.t. software market. But there are other areas where there does exist a shortage in the US- nurses for example. Also, only non-english speaking immigrants take up cerain jobs no American wants - janitors for example.

My friend that got laid off 2 weeks ago had 3 interviews already in the Minneapolis area.

It will be pretty hard to find a good job on certifications alone. Everyone in my SW development group holds a CS or related B.S/masters degree w/ at least 9 years of experience. Some hold SCJP. I have SCJP, SCJD, SCWCD and a masters.

I think finding a company that will sponsor you will be difficult. Employers don't even want out-of-town applicants because they don't want to pay for the moving expenses.

Hi Bin,
I understand your enthusiasm for getting in to programming. These days you have to have something special to offer in order to succeed in programming. There are too many people w/o formal CS education that can not find jobs in programming today. If you are creative and innovative and have a related degree, your chances will be better. (unless you are directly related a big shot in the same company)

I don't think it will matter. If your first/last name is very long, people will understand. I have seen many chineese people in my company using shorter/Americanized names that are different from what they have on the resume. I think it is perfectly ok. If the question comes up during a background check, you can always explain why you had to shorten your name.

Mr. Mark,
A reality check here. I was like you 3 years ago, not believing these numbers but every big company I worked for offshored the IT work. I personally haven't gotten laid off in my 11 year career which I attribute to my solid experience+education but my salary has gone down by quite a bit in the last 3 years. You'd better belive that this is hitting the IT world pretty hard. BTW, I am of Indian origin even though I did most of my education in the US.

Not only that, most of the time project managers and business analysts can not do their job without consuming a big chunk of developers' time. Easy to transition over to a BA from developer than the other way around. You got the power!

US is also very racially tolerant than a lot of Europian countries. As long as you produce results, that is what counts in most businesses and organizations.
God Bless America!

One simple rule-
If you can't beat them, join them!

Natalie,
Those quotas are always subjected to change. I have been seeing all these postings about offshoring. But if the US govt makes it hard for US to do business in third world countries, the quota will go up again, this time all those people from those countries will be brought to the US to help with development. What do you suggest that one should do?
I personally find that software has become too easy hence the multitude of people trying to make a living out of it. I always thought I was more qualified than the people with non-engineering/sciences degrees but then I talked to this Canadian programmer that taught himself software w/o a degree- there wasn't s single design patters/UML question he could not answer. He was actually pretty good. It is just not that hard to do....

Yes, good grammer and english helps too

See, it is not all that easy to be a dependent.