My Job Is Going To India

2008 is going to be a year of change for me. The company I work for, IM Flash, is parented by Intel and Micron (hence the “I” and the “M”). IM Flash makes NAND, which makes stuff like your iPod and iPhone go. (Yes, I’m aware there are non-Apple uses for NAND.) IM Flash is majority owned by Micron, and we rely on Micron’s infrastructure for our operations. This has been good for us, as we will have fully ramped a $3 billion fab in 18 months, and the next one will go even faster. But its not all candy and puppies: Micron isn’t as strong financially as it could be, and is in process of a major internal restructuring if its IT force. The end result is half of Micron’s IT is being offshored. Because we are technically a separate company, and in the midst of ramping multiple fabs, our jobs are somewhat more secure for now. For now.

(You can read more about my job in my previous post: What I Do)

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to prepare myself for the change that I’m going to see this year. One of my favorite technical books that I’ve read in the past few years is Chad Fowler’s My Job Went to India (and all I got was this lousy book): 52 Ways to Save Your Job, which I just got back from a friend. I recently skimmed through it again, remembering all the ways that it challenged my assumptions over what I needed to do to move my career as a software developer forward. So I decided that I should take each of the 52 chapters over the course of 2008 and write a somewhat weekly post about each chapter’s advice and discuss what I currently do (or don’t do) and what I’ll try to do in the future.

The Setup

One of the things that has always stuck with me is the introduction in Chad’s book. In it, he shows that those workers in India aren’t so much stealing US jobs as much as they are trying to live the American dream. They want a better life, to take care of their families, and educate their children. They are also playing an important role in the global market for IT work, and they certainly aren’t to blame for jobs being offshored. In fact, in the book Chad makes the point that nobody is to blame for jobs being offshored. That is simply the way it is and the way it will continue. The point isn’t to fight for your current job, the point is to find new ways or transition to a job with a higher value add.

You can read the introduction to the book here.

Chad’s book isn’t very big, but what it lacks in length it makes up for in density of ideas. The book is broken up into 4 sections:

  1. Choose your market. Pick the technologies and business domains you focus on consciously and deliberately. How do you balance risk and reward? How do supply and demand factor into the decision?
  2. Invest in your product. Your knowledge and skills are the corner-stone of your product. Properly investing in them is a critical part of making yourself marketable. Simply knowing how to program in Visual Basic isn’t good enough anymore. What other skills might you need in the new economy? How can you compete with both your offshore and onshore rivals?
  3. Execute. Simply having employees with a strong set of skills doesn’t pay off for a company. The employees have to deliver. How do you keep up the delivery pace without driving yourself into the dirt? How do you know you’re delivering the right value for the company?
  4. Market! The best product in history won’t get purchased if nobody knows it exists. How do you get find recognition in both your company and the industry as a whole without “sucking up”?

The Series

One thing I want to make clear is that I’m not upset about the prospects of losing my job. I’ve said many times that if the company thinks they can get a better deal from offshoring, then by all means let me know and I’ll find a new job. This series of posts will explore what I think about my career and what I do to move it along.

All these posts will be tagged with the tag “mjigti”, an acronym for “My Job Is Going To India”. You can read all the posts with this tag here.

I know that this could sound like a huge open love letter to Chad, but its not. This is for me. If you really don’t like it you can probably create a feed minus the posts with the tag “mjigti” using Yahoo! Pipes or something. :)

Published:
01.07.08 / 08AM
Updated:
01.07.08 / 08AM
Tags:
mjigti

4 comments

Mr. 01.09.08 / 11AM
Hi , Just thought of saying couple of things here, 1. I don;t know what kidn of a book is that. 2. If some one is capable enough , then no need of fear of loosing job. 3. Now, India is not the biggest Outsourcing Center,FYI: Jobs staretd moving from India to other palces like China. 4. It is the market. 5. American companies want to amke money, increase the profit, that si the only reason why jobs are moviong away. Share holders has to be more "patriotic' to stop the flow of jobs and make a quality life with less importance for money!... 6.Indians are capable enough to come and grab (not only indians!..) it agian shows the inability of US people. 8. Making some comody scences (the last one i saw was in movie Transformers- Director is making fun of one Indian fellow BPO employee!...) will nto help you guys!...
Mike Moore 01.25.08 / 10AM

Hi Mr. You have more than a couple points. :)

  1. Its a good book, you should read it and not pre-judge its message.
  2. I'm not afraid of losing my job. But I don't look forward to the inconvenience of finding a new job. And I resent that someone else would make a decision that affects my livelihood, especially after I decided to commit myself to a company.
  3. I understand outsourcing is more than just India, but India is seen as the face of offshoring. As it just so happens, my job will be offshored to a company located in India
  4. I disagree. I believe it is a combination of low expectations and lack of trust of US IT workers by their management. Outsourcing and offshoring are no silver bullet.
  5. I don't believe patriotism has anything to do with it. Both my parent companies are international, so exactly who should they be patriotic to? IT needs to add more value and less overhead. We can do that by outsourcing and trusting a third party to do that for us, or we can execute better.
  6. I don't begrudge the IT workers in India or China or Russia or anywhere else that work is being offshored. They do good work. I don't think it shows the inability of US workers, but it may show the failure of IT management.
  7. The best humor is grounded in real life. The scene you refer to actually happened, minus the alien robots. A squad was in a firefight and used a local cell phone to call in an air strike, but they had to use a credit card because the operator would not patch the call through. The humor is not because the operator was Indian, but because he was dispassionate to the circumstances of the callers. Grow a sense of humor.
Patti 01.30.08 / 22PM
Hi Mikey! I'm a long time viewer, first time commenter (well, the 2nd half is true). Anyhoo, the book sounds awesome - something Jeffi should read since hjigti too! We love you guys!
Mike Moore 01.31.08 / 11AM
Hi Patti! Thanks for checking my site out. (Patti is my sister.)