My Job Went To India

2005-09-30T01:55:00-07:00

A pleasant surprise was waiting for me when I got home today. A copy of Chad Fowler’s excellent book My Job Went To India was waiting for me in the mail. I’m not sure that I can give an objective review (for reasons I’ll go into here), but if you are serious about making a career in programming, you should buy this book.

What Mr. Fowler does here is to take a fair and interesting look at how outsourcing has affected the field of software development. If you want a breathy ode to a flat world where we’re all information works or a hysterical screed against them foreigners taking jobs, this is not a book for you. But if you’re a programmer like me who likes to develop, but also wants to know how to control his career, this book has the pragmatic information you need.

The problem is, most software devlopers really don’t deserve their jobs more than a given developer in India or somewhere else (don’t fault them for their zeal and definitely do not underestimate their smarts). We usually fail in several ways:

Skills. Have you learned any new technologies in the last year? How much do you control how you design and implement things, or do you just mindlessly code specs given from on high?
Business. Any developer can see the technical dimensions of a problem, but very few are able to grasp the business side of their jobs. Do you know your business domain? Do you understand how the bottom line at your company works?
Communication. The stereotype of the developer as a lone wolf working strange hours and sitting sullenly in a dark office is often all too true. This needs to change. If the CEO of your company doesn’t understand what you do, why exactly would he think it couldn’t be done better in India?
Marketing. There is a world outside of your company. Should you lose your job, what sort of network do you have to draw on? And what exactly would convince an employer to hire you?
Passion. Finally, are you sure you even want to be a developer in the first place? Is this a career you fell into, or one you want to fight for?

As I was noting earlier, self promotion is one of biggest failings of geeks these days. I realized this was my biggest problem last year, but I’m glad to see such an authoritative and well-crafted examination of the problem in Chad’s book.

Which brings me to why I must concede I can’t give an entirely objective review to this book. Around six months ago, I decided to get more involved in the online community. I started blogging, and I started reading blogs of alpha geeks whose judgements I respected. This included people in the Ruby on Rails community, and Chad’s blog was one of them. A short time later, Chad asked for test readers for his draft manuscript, and I offered to help. He accepted me as a test editor, and i enjoyed the experience immensely. It was a great way to test the strength of his book and correct weaknesses, and I have to commend Chad for it. And I’m proud I could help out and become more involved with my career in the process. It’s a good book. Buy it. It’s worth it.

Nimble Code: My Job Went To India

My Job Went To India