Public sector jobs for programmers?

Without prejudice, you need to understand the hard cold fact that those guys are willing to do the same work for a fraction of the cost. And when software is involved there is little or no shipping costs so why not.

I dont like it either but thats how it is. It has made for a very competitive job market here in Australia and wages have fallen a great deal.

I've no idea (or I dont want to even think of) the solution for this problem. If they decide to outsource my job to someone somewhere in Asia who is happy to have a job and will work for $0.20 an hour, maybe I'll just go and sell meat pies out the back of my car.

Luckily I don't see it happening to my job, considering the nature of the job. But there are many many people who just moved to Australia who will work for half the cost.

I don't know how to look at it as I am confused with all this hostility in the world today. Maybe I will go and sell meat pies from the boot of my car anyway...

:cool:

Sometimes it's only a matter of how you sell yourself.

After early retirement more than 1 year ago (I'm just over 40), I went solo, selling myself as a good programmer. And because I am experienced, I am selling myself somewhat more expensive than others. Nothing happened. Most companies would still be just willing to take in new grads which are, as expected, inexpensive.

I repackaged myself as expert in a particular line of system (similar to what you will see if you view my profile). It worked. I got big projects and I am negotiating right now for a new one.

It sound as though I am more of a businessman. But actually, the way I work right now, I still feel I am more of a programmer.

Why don't you try my formula? But please -- if it won't work for you, don't blame me. :) :D

"WITHOUT PREJUDICE"

Ok, first off, what mdmd said may go for outsourcing in general but not offshore...

Secondly, even if it is a government job they still need to stick to a budget. And if the administrators agree that it is cheaper and quicker to outsource to some dudes in Ragtown, MidEast, they are going to do it for the sake of the organisation. I mean, which goverment wouldn't like to be able to have less of a budget deficit at the end of their term..?

And thirdly, this is a problem that isn't going to go away overnight so you need to take care of number one, like aio said. Just do whatever is necessary to set yourself apart from the rest. Its a dog-eat-dog world out there...
:mad:

Originally posted by mdmd
Anyhoo, programming can be done anywhere, plumbing can't.


yep I love my plumbing done by third world countries that don't understand what clean water is...yep :thumb:

/Hey didn't we cure polio? sorry bob, but some back arsed african countries think it's a great satan conspiracy, please adjust your tinfoil hat so your on the same frequency as europe...ahh there you go...good job...what europe how does that figure? ahh well bob, people point the finger at the US and love to read revisionist history...especially when it comes to israel and the pal nuts...you mean bob the US had nothing to do with that? why yes..try france and britain and world war I...why gee bob (is that like france and indochina and vietnam?), I'm a socilast can't we just re-write it, sure go ahead there are plenty of tin foilers that will follow you...and we are gonna take south carolina...yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Originally posted by mdmd
Heh, dhimmocrat primaries get to you tonight ? :p

Just can't wait till they come to Ma. :sick:

nah...lets see the breakdown...

Dean: nutjob...gee it shows huh :)
kerry: see gore...
clark: umm sorry general, we don't vote for generals...
sharpton: umm need I say more...

edwards: has me interested...

lib me her am: try VP sometime...

who was the other one? k something...whatever...

doesn't matter,. hoping for

giuliani/rice in 2008 (what a moderate conservative, mick I can't believe you)

bush better come up with some better deficit slashing or he loses my vote (which until I see what shakes out on the dimocrat side, isn't gonna happen)...but then I'd never thought I had already voted a liberal in office (see bush spending)

Originally posted by aio
Sometimes it's only a matter of how you sell yourself.

After early retirement more than 1 year ago (I'm just over 40), I went solo, selling myself as a good programmer. And because I am experienced, I am selling myself somewhat more expensive than others. Nothing happened. Most companies would still be just willing to take in new grads which are, as expected, inexpensive.

I repackaged myself as expert in a particular line of system (similar to what you will see if you view my profile). It worked. I got big projects and I am negotiating right now for a new one.

It sound as though I am more of a businessman. But actually, the way I work right now, I still feel I am more of a programmer.

Why don't you try my formula? But please -- if it won't work for you, don't blame me. :) :D

I will keep this in mind. Thanks :)

Quote by mdmd

I think Bush will roll back all his liberal BS when he's re-elected.
8-12 million illegals - durrr we don't know - but we know where
to send mdmd's tax bills.

Although I have to agree with your rhetoric on politics, please don't take such a negative stance on illegal aliens. Alot of these people just want to have normal lives(or make some money and leave), or escape persecution in their home countries. They often work hard and do jobs that most Americans won't even think of doing(grave digger, garbage man, working in retirement homes(not a pleasant job), cutting grass for next to nothing, construction, etc.) These people often to these jobs well and without complaints(when was the last time you heard some 20 year old young adult say "I'm heading for a prospective career working in the cemetery/burger joint/filling potholes), as long as they're paid something(doesn't have to be alot). Individual Americans will hire them to do backbraking/boring/dangerous/unpleasant jobs and these illegals will do them. I must admit, I was not born in the US, I'm a naturalized citizen and proud of Old Glory, however, these people often make the services and goods that we get cheaper. And who could not forget such foreign cuisines that were americanized(pizza ::drueling:::)). I support bush in many ways as well, however, driving all of these people out of the country will do more harm than good. For example, in Silicon Valley, at the height of the dot com boom, 1 in 4 companies were founded by immigrants and 1 in 3 engineers were foreigners(I could spend hours on talking about how foreigners have improved America). Their creativity allowed our country to become so technologically advanced. Even in Western Europe, many people are leaving from there so they could study/work in the states, the reason, we have less beuracracy and more opportunities(and the abundance of opportunities comes from being the most liberal country in the world). So please mdmd, becareful about how you talk about foreigners in the states(even if they are illegal), they're one of our greates assets.

You do have a point, breaking the law is something that I definitely don't want to see. However you have to take into the account that alot of these people are desperate(which is most of Eastern Europe, Asia, South America, Carribean, Africa, Middle East, etc.), sometimes they barely scratch a living on what they do at home. As a result it drives them to these extremes. As far as I'm concerned it's better to adopt a more liberal immigration policy then a tough one, because if you're a very large and wealthy nation and as long as there will be plenty of desperate people in the world, you will always have a problem. In fact most of the people that do come here don't really want to stay here(I know I've been in regular contact with Eastern European immigrants in the past and I think, although not 100% sure, that other groups have similar views), they just want to make a some money and leave. If the laws were more lenient, those very people would come over, stay some time and (if they want to) leave. Changing the law to be more flexible would have the best results for Americans and foreigners trying to get in(given the fact that the world today is a dump/nuts/psychotic/crazy).

Here ( http://www.townhall.com/columnists/brucebartlett/bb20040308.shtml) is an interesting artical about outsourcing. It really gets past the hype and marketing.

Yes it is true that sometimes taxes aren't paid. Because many of those illegals don't want to and can't pay taxes because they'll get kicked out of the country. However it would be a mistake to assume that the foreigners come to our country make money and leave without any benefit for us(with the exception by giving us work that is done at a lower price). Most of those illegal immigrants buy goods(computers, cars, appliances, etc.), because when they arrive to the US, they want to be just as succesful as Americans and they acquire stuff such as cell phones, cars, houses, etc. And correct me if I'm wrong, but we're in a capitalistic economy, where consumerism makes up for something like 1/3 of our GDP(plus the government does take in some taxes from increased sales tax). So I doubt that these people just simply leave without any contribution to the US.
Also, mburke, when you say that someone else will do it cheaper, that was the case for a large part of US history. After the Civil War, alot of northern industrialists built textile mills in the south, because the wages were lower and the unions were weaker. And there are countless cases where companies would move operations/factories/offices from a richer state to a poorer one, because the property taxes would be lower, there would be more abundant resources for them to exploit or the labor was cheaper. The only difference now, is that when someone says "out", they mean out of the country, not out of the county, state or city(I got that part from some article that I read on cnn.com or something, don't remember exactly). And as far as I'm concerned we're not servicing other economies, it's globalization after all, we buy the raw materials from(this is just an example) Mexico, fabricate in Canada and assemble it in the US(with other parts coming from other parts of the world). Also, when immigrants come over here, they learn stuff technology/business/etc. and they can take that knowledge back to improve their countries, which indirectly can help us. Ah the wonderful world of Globalization, where everything goes around in one endless circle :D . Besides, I like it if I have to pay less money for stuff and services. :) :) :)

That's true, no one likes to pay more taxes or feel cheated by someone else. However, as I said before(somewhere), if the law were to be changed and made more lenient, less illegals would have to hide in order not get caught and the government will have a much easier time in collecting taxes. Also, as the laws are liberalized, the newcomers could potentially start investing more into stuff like real-estate/business, which will give them something to lose if they don't obey the law and which could reduce the number of law breakers. You'll have to excuse me on my vague language, but when it comes to talking on issues of sociology, governments, and immigration as far as I'm concerned programming in C is infinetly easier(when it comes to keeping track of stuff and making predictions, unless you're in a police state :) ). You could probably gauge the effectiveness of this theory by implementing a trial run for a short period of time(a year) and see what happens. If the results are an overall improvement from what was previously happening, then it's a clearly better approach. But like I said, in sociology, you never know.

LOL, now that's what I call a programming project, making an extremely complex program to model human behavior of people with different cultures(most of which we don't understand) and finding out what happens. We could get everybody involved here, :D , now all we need is 5kg of pretzels and some good soda and we're set to do some cool programming:D .