Opendoor Cuts Jobs in India, Shifts Technical Hiring To Bay Area and Krakow (x.com) 29
Property group startup Opendoor has cut 65 jobs, mostly in India, and is shifting technical hiring to Bay Area and Krakow (Poland).
Opendoor said in a statement: "As part of our ongoing efforts to enhance efficiency, optimize talent, and streamline operations, we have made the decision to consolidate our Engineering, Product, and Design (EPD) team structure. Moving forward, we will focus our technical hiring efforts in two main hubs: the Bay Area, California and Krakow, Poland."
Opendoor said in a statement: "As part of our ongoing efforts to enhance efficiency, optimize talent, and streamline operations, we have made the decision to consolidate our Engineering, Product, and Design (EPD) team structure. Moving forward, we will focus our technical hiring efforts in two main hubs: the Bay Area, California and Krakow, Poland."
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EU Silicon Valley (Score:2)
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The Polish Tech Boom – Why Are IT Professionals Flocking to Poland? [devsdata.com]
usa needs cheap educational system and eu health i (Score:2, Insightful)
usa needs cheap educational system and eu health insurance (not tied to jobs)
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Agree 100%, both things that would supercharge the US economy.
Those would have been the days eh? Too bad majority of people in fact wanted the opposite.
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Re:usa needs cheap educational system and eu healt (Score:4, Insightful)
The biggest irony and really rebuttal to most of these dishonest politicians and pundits who rail against education and especially higher education: how many wealthy people send their wealthy kids to trade school, or just let them eschew college altogether? Very, very few. People who have money are actually quite insistent that their children attend college and a good college at that, just look at the celebrity admissions scandal a few years back.
Rich people know the power of higher education, most of them did it and they make sure their kids do as well. That doesnt mean "college for everyone!" but the concept of education ending at 12th grade is farciacal, no matter what you do.
Anyone who is going against education and public education especially is against societal progress and has ulterior motives. The founders of America had a lot of disagreements amongst themselves, something they all almost agreed upon was the importance of an educated populace and the idea that your status of wealth should not affect the education you get.
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I can understand why, if you're rich, you don't need cheap education or public healthcare, but I've always been baffled at how many people whose lives would be better for it, don't want it. I guess that's what happens when you convince a population that they aren't actually poor/lower class, they're just temporarily embarrassed millionaires, one great idea or meritocratic leap back to the top, so obviously you shouldn't want something that's good for poor people.
It's the Orwellian idea of distracting the masses with strawman enemies. China has the Falung Gong, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan. Russia has the US and NATO. White supremacists have blacks. Conservatives have communists, socialists, and social programs. As you mentioned, the baffling part is that the strawmen are so effective in getting the masses to act against their own true self-interests, even though the characteristics of the strawmen as enemies are made-up. But the effective use of the strawmen a
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"House Republicans released a budget resolution Wednesday that calls for cutting taxes by up to $4.5 trillion and sets a goal of slashing federal spending by $2 trillion." -NBCNews
Hopefully most voters remember second grade arithmetic and will be able to conclude that the 'plan' puts America deeper in debt...by at least $2.5 trillion.
Krakow! Krakow! (Score:2)
Two direct hits! [tomwritesaboutstuff.com]
India is no tech panacea (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone in the industry knew it was bullshit. For starters...some 22yo Indian comp sci grad...does he want to live in an expensive city in India and get your scrap surplus projects?...or move to the USA, UK, Germany, etc and earn 5x the salary and have a global adventure and work on the the stuff that actually matters to your company....yeah...that just accelerated brain drain.
For those that chose to remain in India?...anyone you wanted to hire?...well...they either moved to you...or someone like Microsoft or Google hired them at a much higher salary and treated them with a lot more respect.
In the end, no one really saved much money by moving operations to India. Nothing is more expensive than a cheap programmer....anyone you want to hire?...everyone else wants to hire them too...simple supply and demand. Finally, if you find a great offshore programmer...well, due to supply and demand, they would surely get poached by someone who wants to pay them more and treat them with more respect. EVERYONE hires in India, but it's because they want the talent India provides, not to save money.
Secondly, as most here know, the Indian middle class has a lot of arranged marriage and being a software engineer carries more social status there...so yeah...you want a hot wife?...no need to be charming or likeable...just work really hard and get a good job and mommy will get you a hot wife...hotter than any woman who would actually date you if you got a choice (that describes well over half of my coworkers...SMOKING hot wives...given to chubby smokers with pencil arms, horrible mustaches, and no social skills or redeeming features that anyone knows of). In the USA and EU, most programmers get into programming because they like technology...if they find it's not a fit for them, they do something else. In India?...well...it's quite frowned upon by your family and wife's family to get married as a software engineer and then decide after you have kids "Hey...this job sucks and I hate it...I want to teach...or sell real estate...or open a restaurant." So...there are a lot of excellent programmers in India...just like everywhere else. There are a lot more shitty programmers in India, both in absolute numbers and percentage-wise...because the shitty ones are pressured not to leave the field.
Why? Well, every dogshit American programmer I've worked with?...they moved to management if they were charming and teaching, real estate, or their fallback career otherwise. The same applies to European ones. Being a software engineer is a rational decision based purely on the merits of the job...not social status or your ability to get married. There's no shame for them to sell real estate if it pays the bills. For people outside India, if being an engineer doesn't suit them...they find a calling that does....for every Indian I've talked to, leaving the field (unless you moved to management or another prestige profession, like doctor), you will get shame from your family and especially your in-laws.
But regardless, the point is that there's nothing magical about India. They have AMAZING devs...and SHITTY ones, just like anyone else. And honestly?...they're not that much cheaper than American devs, especially after you factor in the productivity loss as well as the lack of loyalty because they have so many options if they live in a tech city, like Bangalore. You get someone amazing and train them and they're a rockstar? How long before Meta, Netflix, or Google poaches the
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Very well put. And this line made my day, very, very true:
Nothing is more expensive than a cheap programmer
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To add to your list of outsourcing woes:
1) Time difference
2) Cheating / Work ethic
The time difference means that your hire a super-duper developer in California, who gets up at 5am to meet with the India team at 5:30pm their time. Assuming they work for 1 hour together, if the issue is not resolved, you lose 1 entire day. The next day, they collaborate for another hour, but still have confusion/questions/training -- so that's 2 days. So every hour of collaboration time takes 24 times longer. This is les
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If a company needs a dev center in India, it needs to build one there. The issue of communication is there, especially with US teams, but we communicate asynchronously or both stay up late/wake up early to meet. We never need to do that unless someone like a manager is involved, at which point "put a meeting on the calendar" is their default reaction to everything.
Many companies invest in H1B visa programs to bring engineers to the US. Most of my colleagues are now citizens through that program. Yes, they d
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I just wonder if the H-1B program should be tossed and anyone on that program just made a naturalized US citizen. Then replace it with a visa path, where if someone is so essential to the economy that they remove an American from a job, give them citizenship at the outset, so they are not enslaved to a company and deported if fired.
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Yes! But note that there are two types of H1-Bs.
One is that really smart engineer who is a core member of your team. Your company went out of their way to hire this person and they are awesome. There are probably like 1 of them for every 40 US citizens working in your office. Our country should be doing everything it can to convert them to US citizens. Many have settled here, married, have kids in school, etc. They are indistinguishable from US citizens and absolutely deserve citizenship.
The other is
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That is why I mentioned this. If there is no H-1B program and people are given permanent residency or even citizenship, that discourages businesses from doing this in the first place, because they have no stranglehold over the person's ability to make a home. The bad ones that are there for cheap would be passed over, while the true superstars who have awetastic skills get something and are not deported if their employer gives them a middle finger.
Slow news day? (Score:2)
Why should I care that 65 people got laid off at a startup I never heard of. 65 people probably get laid off from startups I never heard of every single day.
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I think because the outflow of workers is usually in the opposite direction, out of cities like SF and into India.
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Probably this is one of the few news events that goes against the constant inflow of what most businesses are doing, especially the F500 companies.