It astounds me that there are still jobs for developers. I'm not talking about SV stars, I mean the hundreds of thousands of programmers writing CRUD apps around the country. That is eminently moveable, and if the stereotypical code quality of the stereotypical foreign outsourcing shop is sub par, it's not because they don't have the same brains as we do, it's merely because a) they haven't caught up with us yet (they will), and b) they haven't captured that work as primary developers yet, they're still learning to take that work by being (at the moment) sub contractors.
Japan after World War II, for example, broke into the market by making "cheap plastic crap" and motorcycles. Then better plastic crap and small cars (remember the Honda 600?). Then really good plastic crap and really good cars, and now that pie is divided among many more people around the world, including "our" pie.
Why will software be any different? It takes no resources except a brain, a computer and a connection. The whole world has the same quality of brains and computers as we, and their connection quality is often much better and cheaper than ours.
"Why will software be any different? It takes no resources except a brain, a computer and a connection. The whole world has the same quality of brains and computers as we, and their connection quality is often much better and cheaper than ours."
It takes one more resource: communication. Custom software development is quite different from motorcycles. If you need custom software development, and your business is going to depend on the result, outsourcing that effort to another country, especially across cultural and maybe language barriers, can be a disaster. You need developers who understand your business and the expectations of your customers.
In fact, take your argument and apply it to every other position in a company. Only a few of them, like sales, truly require an in-person presence, yet companies don't outsource most of them. Are they crazy, or are there good reasons for that?
"If you need custom software development, and your business is going to depend on the result, outsourcing that effort to another country, especially across cultural and maybe language barriers, can be a disaster."
For now. Yes, today it often is a disaster. It won't always be so. We didn't used to have an Indian software industry at all, for example. Now there is one. And one day it will be a no brainer to send most CRUD work there. In fact it won't be "sent" there, that function will exist there. And not only because India and other countries catch up on an industrial scale, but because businesses will demand it. Supply and demand has two sides, and demand will be filled, however slowly.
"yet companies don't outsource most of them. Are they crazy, or are there good reasons for that?"
They haven't got good at it yet, but they're trying and learning, and suppliers are getting better.
Large corporations only make one thing, money. Each one happens to do it by selling something different, but what they sell is incidental, what they're good at is making money. Part of making money is not spending money. If you're a bank, your software systems may be crucial to your business, but they're two steps away from the primary business of making money: 1) Make money, by 2) selling bank services, enabled by 3) software and other systems.
If you can get the same or better quality outside your building you'll do it if it's cheaper and good enough. If you have a communication problem between the software department and the investment department, one solution is to send both departments outside the building, and let them communicate with each other in a cheaper venue. If it's possible, it will be done.
I'm not saying don't go into software development. I'm saying that the world changes, and my 13 year old son's career is going to be much different than yours, inevitably. And your career is going to be much different in twenty years than it is today, not only because you'll have changed and grown, but because the world will have changed out from under you. And it gets faster every day.
Here's hoping that we're all rolling in dollars in twenty years. Or rupees.
