yeago works

Sorry for the exclusive title. This covers not only programmers but the IT sector in general: designers, you too.

This ‘recession’ of ours is interesting because, as far as I can tell the impact simply has not hit us. In fact, my personal experience tells me the opposite. I know a rascally pack of individuals (a design team) who recently quit their day jobs, and are floating without much problem at all. Strange isn’t it that we’re supposedly in a recession? But not if you consider some things.

Competition isn’t terrible for American programmers

Even with the supposed ‘influx of indian computer programmers’ that people liked to go and on about, I’ve never lost a single job to Asia (India and some ex-Soviet bloc). In fact, even given the difference in hourly-cost between Asian and American web developers, competition is still rather strong. I’ve taken on several freelance clients who had previously hired developers from other countries with weaker currencies. On the flip side, I’ve also attempted to outsource work to these programmers and its never paid off much compared to doing it myself.

I believe that new interfacing methods–and thus familiarity and capacity in utilizing them–are simply more natively part of American culture. This isn’t some racist allegation, its just that the devices we sell here, their deeper integration into our lives, and the peculiar lingo which development clusters adopt are simply more centered around English and America.

Some examples include the Django Framework, named after a foreign albeit Americanized musician, Prototype.js (which attempts to incorporate a more natural English rhythm to common JavaScript techniques), Ruby on Rails which is an attempt in the vein of Prototype but for server-side development and even lends its name to an American contribution to technology (yes, Obviously trains are known worldwide by now, that’s not what I am saying. I am simply saying they are at a basic level Americana-centric). Also, all the most active IRC channels and web forums are English.

The Falling Dollar

Another reason that things aren’t terrible here is because countries like the UK are finding themselves with plenty of cash to spend in America, and this is translating to an influx of jobs–new web applications are still a good investment. This is very evident in markets like craigslist. So while many Americans are feeling high tide coming, the IT sector–which for the past decade has been synonymous with inflated incomes–is still finding new opportunities. There is currently lots of talk about the Microsoft-Yahoo alleged buy-out, but let’s not be so quick to blame this on the recession. Yahoo has been a sick dog for longer than that. What about the tech-darling Google? Its stock dropped 200 bucks! But where are their layoffs if things are so bad? Just compare GOOG with the DOW average [hope that link works] and you’ll realize even with their depreciated stock they are still better than the average.

Intra-American Competition

There is also no evidence that a recession has turned up the heat on intra-American competition, either. While one reason is because, as I mentioned above, the pool for demand is growing in areas like the UK, I also suspect that American IT workers are constantly developing new methods and learning to raise their efficiency relative to workers in other sectors. Also, I believe that companies realize that even in times of slow-growth there is a cost-saving advantage to maintaining a budget for IT services. I know my company does.

I won’t get too much into my reasons why IT workers have been able to raise their productivity. We’ve all heard the rant about open source methods. I will simply say that open web forums and IRC channels, as well as a boom in GPL web-frameworks are technically impervious to pitting people against each other within their sector because they are all ultimately in collaboration. In terms of the sharing of methods they are open mediums. Closed, competitive guilds simply can’t form in this environment. Workers in this sector enjoy an immediate and costless resource of each other’s support.