If you haven’t read Chad Fowler’s “My Job Went to India“, do so now. Like many of my peers, I’m wondering what will become of our industry as more and more work moves to countries with lower labor costs (I’ll leave out an obligatory analysis of the increased communication costs that often offset the cheaper wages). Anyway, Chad’s book offers some great advice on how to lessen the likelihood that *your* job will find it’s way to Mumbai.
One way to avoid the outsource machine is simple - supply and demand. Rather than polishing commodity skills, spend your personal development effort on technologies that the major off shore houses aren’t looking at yet (cough, Ruby, cough). It may seem a bit counterintuitive (like the long tail concept) but being fluent in a niche like Lisp could actually make you more employable than being yet another ASP guy. Not sure what to focus on? Take a look at Google Trends…
A very wise man asked me the other night how I cost justified spending my own hard earned cash on Rails training and I replied that I see it as an investment. I still earn the majority of my income on Java work but I realize that our industry changes every day - staying ahead of that keeps me employable.
