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Comment by s_baby | Hacker News Reader

How am I supposed to feel confident in pursuing a career in CS with 3rd world developers doing the work for $12/hr?

Not everything can be outsourced. Like someone said in the comments, it is harder to outsource a new project, much easier when you are set the conventions in place already.

Also a lot of companies still need face to face. I am a freelancer myself and I don't feel threatened by outsourcing.

But is it reasonable to see these limitations hold in the future? I'm not so sure.

Just don't try to compete with them?

"Normal" Web-Programming isn't something you need to study CS for...

Try to learn how to write good specs and pay those people yourself for stuff you don't wanna do.

"How am I supposed to feel confident in pursing a career as a 3-star Chef with McDonalds employees doing the work for $12/hr?" :)

Don't let yourself become commoditized!

Yes but how much does a 3-star chef make in Eastern Europe?

A 3 star chef in the USA probably only makes about 12 dollars an hour considering the amount of hours one works per day.

I don't know what is a 3-star chef, but "workers" (not managers) in McD make somewhere from $3 to $10 in V4 countries.

Integrity is a big problem with outsourcing projects. How do you know that your dev wont make a spin off of your product or give you a little "present" within the code in case you decide to fired him? I am sure that the people who outsource their projects for $12/hr won't even care about legal binding.

Not to mention, integrity is just one of the many problems. So, I don't see why you should be worrying.

Outside of a small subset of companies, it's not a career known for stability or long term employment prospects.

This kind of outsourcing is commodity web development of the simplest type. Don't compete in that arena.

You seriously consider parts of Europe to be a 3rd world countries?

I think going with that nomenclature most of those countries (Ukraine, Hungry, etc) would be second world countries. If I remember correctly folks in the US coined those terms during the cold war. The first world countries were the US and allies, second the USSR and allies and third world the unaffiliated countries. Third world has come to be used as a term for impoverished countries as many of the unallied countries at that time were rather poor, but that wasn't the meaning. Somebody should definitely spot check me on this postulate before they accept it as fact.

Originally, first world = NATO + allies, second world = soviet bloc, third world = countries that were politically and economically too poor to warrant investing much effort in. It was a Cold War thing.

These days, first world is synonymous with 'developed', third with 'developing' and second doesn't really have a meaning.

Yes, the standard of living in too much of Eastern Europe is quite low. Perhaps not as bad as some of the _worst_ of 3rd world countries, but low enough to make the $12/hour the author paid quite high.

I don't know about Ukraine but I think that standard of living is not low in EU countries such as Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary or Slovakia. In all of these countries is $12/hour well above average salary. In the CS field it's probably below average, but you wouldn't have problems with finding a skilled student for that pay for example.

By the definition posted bellow they are all 1st world countries. In what I consider a 3rd world country most citizens don't have access to clean water, "proper" housing, health-care, etc... and $12 is closer to a weekly salary. And I'm pretty sure the lowest standard of living is much worse (and affects higher percentage in population) in India or all of the South America than it is in Ukraine.

I'm from Europe and I somethimes feel like that. North- and West-Europe (France, Germany, Sweden, UK and stuff) is mostly Okay, but the South and the East is like they are stuck in the past.

According to the original definition, the region in question was all Second World. According to the modern definition, there are developing nations in Europe (eg Albania, Belorus).

I'm from eastern bloc. It's just an expression.

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