U.S. engineers at a disadvantage. Join the conversation

9/16/2009 12:30 PM EDT

Is anyone surprised about this? It goes back to a serious question: Why study engineering in the first place?

9/16/2009 1:23 PM EDT

I worked for a company 2 years ago where H1-B post docs, or pre-docs outnumbered the American Citizens. This company in Grass Valley, California called EiGEN would hire people with Master's and Doctorate with far less experience , while a natural born American was never hired, never provided with MEdical Benefits, even though I have 20 years experience, 2 Master's degrees in Chemical Engineering and Applied Math.
I would have been paid approximately the same 90K, while the range of salaries that were posted was 75 - 85K.
I have since found work at another facility where I have to commute nearly an hour each way, where being an American citizen is an asset instead of being a problem.
So no one can ever tell me that H1-B Visas are not abused. To this day this company has 45% of it's employees are still H1-B holders, or have since married and had a child here in America. Who ever thought that being an American citizen would be a problem !!

9/16/2009 1:30 PM EDT

I am shocked. SHOCKED... I graduated from UofMdCP with an EE degree in 1979. I hoped to earn lots of money, spend it, and support our nation's economy. I have not worked in two years. I have no disposable income to spend on goods containing the products of Monolithic Power Systems' "driven product pipeline."

9/16/2009 2:56 PM EDT

The writing has been on the wall for a long time. Many companies (especially in Silicon Valley) will not hire engineers who are American citizens or older (both translate to higher salaries.) The long term problem for the engineering profession is that first the design and development jobs are going offshore, and next, the design management jobs are going offshore. Eventually, there will be nothing in the US to train new engineers of today on becoming the design managers of tomorrow. Thank you Microsoft and Intel and the rest of the companies run by the beancounters for destroying the engineering profession in the US. Why would anyone pick the very hard path of engineering when they can become a beancounter where the real money is. Pretty soon there will only be marketing and sales left in the US.

9/16/2009 3:01 PM EDT

If we don't manufacture electronic products here, it's clear to me that, sooner or later, we're no longer going to be engineering them here, either. Would I advise a young person today to study engineering? Perhaps, but only to have a technical background, not to actually practice engineering. After getting a bachelor's in engineering, and maybe a master's, I'd counsel them to get an MBA or go to law school.

9/16/2009 3:01 PM EDT

How about these engineers coming up with innovative ventures of their own?

9/16/2009 3:16 PM EDT

Well, 1/5 of my current salary would put me and my family at the poverty level so 1/10 would be insanity. Don't forget to thank Texas Instruments also, a few years ago they had 500+ job offerings in India and zero here in US and Europe. Don't get me wrong, I love India and it's people, given what I see happening its a good thing as I might have to move there just to keep doing what I love.

If I extrapolate out to worst case scenario, engineering and engineers here in the US will be a endangered bread. Yes, I understand outsourcing from employers point of view, but at what point in our society do we say enough is enough. When the bankers, board of directors, bean counters, etc., and the rest of the country all find themselves in some predicament requiring engineering expertise here in the US, well, I guess if I'm still around by then there will be little satisfaction in saying "we told you so".

9/16/2009 3:25 PM EDT

Thanks "TheDon", it's always nice to see "a glass is half full" viewpoint, I hope your right!

When your my age (been doing engineering 20+ years) and you've been through many project cancellations, layoffs, right sizing and down sizing, asked to train your peers in India, etc. and now your trying to put your three kids through college while trying to save anything at all for retirement (if there is such a thing any more, my retirement now looks like a orange vest at Home Depot :-), etc. Well I honestly hope you will have kept your positive attitude :-)

9/16/2009 3:33 PM EDT

Tough to be in the midst of a rapidly changing world. World economic competition still beats the quicker death from traditional armed conflict though.It's a fact that the world is filled with smart people; many more highly motivated (by a hungry belly) than the relatively affluent average American. If our economic/political system has an advantage, it is in the flexibility that a measure of personal independence brings to business. We must (once again) innovate our way out: it's what is left to us. To do that, we MUST return to a quality public education system that will provide the tools for our sons and daughters to compete in the world market. Meanwhile, 'Boomers (like me) had best keep on holding the fort. That may be the silver lining in the collapse of our retirement funds. Another thought: the simple majority of the people I work with are highly educated, extremely competent, happy, and are foreign born (probably with no intention of leaving). That's a testament to the power of a(relatively) open society.

9/16/2009 4:46 PM EDT

I'm now retired and glad of it. It is brutal out there in EE land and will continue to be for a while. I do think the pendulum is swinging back a bit on the off-shoring phenomena - working 'globally' is not a total bed of roses. There are considerable obstacles (e.g. language differences, considerable lack of skill sets and experience, cultural differences) which, up to this point, have been mitigated by the much lower wages overseas. However the wages 'over there' are rapidly increasing at the same time as management here is becoming more aware of the trade-offs. This is leading to some increase in possibilities for domestic engineers. Still lots of problems (e.g. loss of manufacturing, management attitudes) but, eventually, things will even out. But, as I said at the start, I'm glad I'm out of it and I do feel for today's EE - whether a new graduate or an experienced veteran, it is tough and it is going to stay tough.

9/16/2009 5:01 PM EDT

I just want someone to tell me when:

- There are no more engineers left in the NA/Europe who design exportable products

- There are no more s/w people in these areas doing exportable products

- There is no more leading medical development (as it can be off shored as well).

... what the heck those in China and to a lesser extent India are going to buy from us? The trade imbalance is already enormous. The more that is off-shored, the bigger it will get..... but wait, it will start to shrink. No one here will be able to afford anything any more from China. I wonder how long it will take before balance comes back into play?

9/16/2009 5:05 PM EDT

There are a number of key structural issues to consider beyond abuse of H1B and low cost labor (either here or in Asia).

Already raised is education - the quality (pre-University) and cost (University level) of US schooling combined with lack of interest in science and engineering is as much of a long term issue for our future as the demographic bomb of an aging population. (secret tip - send your kids to school overseas, it is cheaper and a great experience).

The direct labor costs difference is declining but still exists, but as mentioned by BobGroh the hidden costs are climbing or becoming more apparent. A huge issue when offshoring manufacturing is actually taxation treatment. A number of Asian countries which have large surpluses offer long generous tax holidays which means that regardless of labor costs you can immediately add 25%-35% to your gross margin (equal to your US tax rate). The US can't compete with this due to the massive deficits we're running. (By contrast reducing labor costs to 1/5th would impact gross margin by much less than this, as it is only one component of cost of goods).

Then there is healthcare. Aside from most of the current arguments out there is the basic fact that US companies are carrying an unfair burden of health costs when compared to competitor countries. Subsidies and trade barriers get fought over (and mostly eliminated), but healthcare as a competitive disadvantage doesn't come up much in discussion.

9/16/2009 5:06 PM EDT

Don and PowerGuy and many others here have it right. The "World if Flat" and all an engineer in the US can do is be better, smarter and faster at developing new skills and moving to the new markets which the low cost international cannot keep up with. So yes a lot of basic, mundane logic/circuit jobs are devalued, but there are still opportunities in architecture, system design. The US is still the best environment for innovation and startups. In my last position I spent a lot of time and effort to bring up labs in India, China as there was pressure "from the top" to develop these geographies as this was seen as the trend towards competing internationally. Actually my top paid US engineers were more than 10 times valuable than their international peers because of their level of skill and ability to innovate. Upper management was offended when I opined that globalized teams were harder to manage, put overhead on the organization and did not actually give a good return even though on a per unit basis they appeared less expensive. So chin-up US engineers you are more capable and should be proud of it.

9/16/2009 5:21 PM EDT

I am just looking forward to the day that a board of directors in their due diligence decides that a CEO candidate from Indochina willing to work for 1/5 what the US Cana date wants is best for the company. Oh boy, when that shoe drops what wailing and gnashing of teeth there will be. I can't wait.

9/16/2009 5:46 PM EDT

Mark LePedus: "Here's the big questions: Based on this data, are U.S. engineers at a disadvantage? Is the handwriting on the wall for U.S.-trained engineers? Is that what all multinationals must do to compete by hiring in China and elsewhere? Is the salary situation unfair or not?"

Mark, my comment is in specific to the above question you raised. Digital processing of bits is killing everything. It is destroying the value of the skill behind the product's development, the value of the product, the shelf-life of the product, the price of the product and any differentiator this product has. Salaries of the engineers in a product development project are really a reflection of the average price of the product in the market. In the past the salaries were somewhat a reflection of the skill because the higher the skill the better the product's price in the market. But that relationship of higher skill to better end product's price is broken by digitization. In the analog field we are not seeing this kind of rapid attrition of salaries, can anyone comment? From my viewpoint (of a semiconductor chip company with China domestic market focus), I don't see a whole lot of analog talent from China that is on par with the US talent, but others may have a better view.

Innovation itself needs to be re-thought. As long as the implementation is all done still in digital world, the standard mantra of be-innovative etc., wouldn't cut it deep enough to create a favorable change for the US engineer salaries. A better mouse-trap is a predictable innovation, only lasts one product cycle and after that the Chinese powers of improvization will take over and destroy the value of this innovation. What we need is something that I can only say with a handwave as unpredictable innovation. Or call it disruptive innovation. US engineers are best at this. If we look around we see that US engineering world is not the only place we are seeing the destruction of value, of salaries etc. The newspaper industry is full of such stories, granted that's not exactly a haven for innovative ideas. Like I was saying, US engineers are best at this kind of disruptive innovation. It is for us to be self-aware of this strength and make what we can with it.

Regards,
Crazyfinger

9/16/2009 6:18 PM EDT

US high-tech companies aren't outsouring their core business to China or India.

As far as I know, China workers in Intel China are working around CPU, BIOS design, firmware design, testing...most of their work aren't related to CPU design completely. And Microsoft is doing the same thing, most software engineers in China Microsoft are doing Windows localization(to display mandarin), testing, test tools dev, user interface or software dev on top of windows. And even researcher's topics are user interface.

9/16/2009 6:36 PM EDT

I'm sorry to contradict everybody else, but I've had a job as an electrical engineer for about 30 years, and I'm still doing fine.
Actually, I think unemployment in engineering has always been lower than most areas. I don't see what the problem is.

9/16/2009 7:13 PM EDT

I can confirm the figure - yes, there are engineers available who can and will do most routine jobs for 10% of US or Canadian rates. They are exactly as competent and productive as their counterparts here. What's more, there is a new trend BPO - business process outsourcing - which is moving back-office work to Asia. What did you expect folks? You see, this moving of the centre of business is not new. Half-way through the 20th century Europeans were complaining that all business was being taken over by Americans.Two more generations and it will be centred back in Europe. Two more from that (100 years) and it will be back in America

9/16/2009 7:37 PM EDT

In our new book, Chips and Change (MIT Press), we provide point estimates for design engineer base salaries in the US, Japan, Taiwan, China, and India as of about 2004 (when we did our field work). The US level was at about 7x that of China, but we also point out that the Chinese engineers are young, inexperienced, and far away (also true in India). Productivity differences, the cost and complexity of remote management, cultural differences, and IP protection concerns all limit the raw salary advantage of Chinese engineers. Beware of public statements that are designed to impress investors or the Chinese authorities.

The US companies we visited seemed happiest with offshore design when it was used for derivative products targeting cost-sensitive markets. US engineers are still highly valued for their independence, creativity, and commitment.

That's not to say we don't worry about the future of the US engineer. US students are turned off to graduate engineering programs because the payday hasn't been able to compare with what finance and other industries can offer. For foreign students, a US engineering degree more than pays for itself even if they don't stay here.

The flat salaries for most of the over-50 engineers at US companies are another turn-off to anyone wondering if there's a future in this industry. That's one problem US companies would do themselves a favor to fix by supporting retraining and other measures to keep experienced engineers productive.

Greg Linden
UC Berkeley

9/16/2009 8:30 PM EDT

The following is a cut and paste of just 1 page out of 5 from the job board on CISCO's website. The other 4 pages look different from this page only in that some of the posted engineering jobs are in China instead of India. I rest my case...


Environmental Test Engineer Engineering - Hardware INDIA.KARNATAKA.BANGALORE R848764 06-Aug-09
Environmental Test Engineer Engineering - Hardware INDIA.KARNATAKA.BANGALORE R848765 06-Aug-09
Hardware Engineer II Engineering - Hardware INDIA.KARNATAKA.BANGALORE R850234 31-Aug-09
Hardware Engineer III Engineering - Hardware INDIA.KARNATAKA.BANGALORE R850259 17-Aug-09
Hardware Engineer III Engineering - Hardware INDIA.KARNATAKA.BANGALORE R850239 24-Aug-09
HARDWARE ENGINEER III Engineering - Hardware INDIA.KARNATAKA.BANGALORE R849645 08-Aug-09
Hardware Engineer III Engineering - Hardware INDIA.KARNATAKA.BANGALORE R849646 08-Aug-09
Hardware Engineer IV Engineering - Hardware INDIA.KARNATAKA.BANGALORE R850255 17-Aug-09
Hardware Engineer IV Engineering - Hardware INDIA.KARNATAKA.BANGALORE R850256 17-Aug-09
Hardware Engineer IV Engineering - Hardware INDIA.KARNATAKA.BANGALORE R850258 17-Aug-09

9/16/2009 9:09 PM EDT

True that, what JeffL said. But reality check says that is not going to get us anywhere better, only makes us even more resentful. I can almost hear others saying, "but you knew that going in...," "but you can't think that way...," "but that is the risk/reward system of the entrepreneur culture we have...," but somehow none of those seem justifiable reasons. There definitely ought to be a discussion about how tech companies ought to have a retirement policy or a career alternative. You would get my vote on that one.

Regards,
Crazyfinger

9/16/2009 10:37 PM EDT

Here from the center of all this (deep inside China) let me share some basic fact with yo all so you won't live in darkness forever...
1. Chinese engineers are at the same IQ level with U.S. and the experience level will catch up in 3-5 years.
talk about TSMC/Huawei which clearly indicates this fact. So don't consider ppl in US have any advantage in this category.

2. People in China are living more enviormental friendly.
ie. living in apartment buildings, commute with bus or e-bike. which consumes less energy/resources.

3. the main difference before/now is government system, people's team spirit in collaborating in big project...
things is improving rapidly now, they learned trick from US by using religious method to improve ppl's moral level.
Koreans are more morally developed than US now (Samsung for example) China will catch up soon.

4. what we ll see is nothing new, it's just a equilibrium process. China will just become next california/korea TW etc.
during the process US will lower it's spoiled living standard somehow (smaller cars for example). Chinese will improve their life a bit (e-bike to small car for example)...

in the end we ll see a world equalized...

5. what US engineers could do.
I suggest US creat a low cost zone, where ppl live in apartment building close to company. shopping centers are right next door. no car, use bike or bus. Wear Walmat clothes only. Company pay for what will cover this cost only.
Otherwise you have to be forced to accept such change in the future by being axed and wondering in the street for half a year and willing to be more humble and economic...

let me know your thought...

9/17/2009 1:31 AM EDT

I'd like to comment on a couple of items:

- First, this is going in many areas of the world and not just the US. I work for a European Semi and it's a true blood bath there. I'm writing this from Tokyo, where their semi industry is consolidating and their system OEMs have not had many winners in the last decade. Singapore, HG, Taiwan have all had to adapt to this change as well, but their proximity to China /India provides opportunities as well.

-Second. In the US I believe there are many structural benefits. Available education for general/specific areas, with numerous degree levels. We have open markets with a still large middle-income, so it's advantageous to start new concepts here. We have a flexible,well educated, mobile and now growing labor base...and motivated. We have a VC environment / heritage for new ideas. We had a good but now crippled financial market willing to invest in growth companies... hopefully this improves quickly.

- In the US over the last 15 years we have seen the emergence /re-emergence of: Google, Apple, Cisco, Ebay, Amazon, IBM, EMC, etc. What countries can offer such a new roster. Our semi companies are leaders: Intel, Xilinx, Qualcom, TI, ADI, Linear tech. Other semi continue to grow, and are well positioned, QCOM, BRCM, Micron, Atherous, SMSC, Micro-Chip, etc.

- Capitalism is destructive but efficient. Remember how the cotton-gin/industrialist changed the complete soceity from rural to cities. There were over 200 car companies in 1910. When was the last time you: used a type-writer/liquid paper, changed the TV with your hand, saw a CRT TV, subscribed for magazine to be delivered to your home, etc. I think we been spoiled in technology as there has always been the next big thing (PC, internet, mobile, digital consumer). Right now there isn't such an obvious product / job creater.

- We have a ton of problems and need engrs to solve them. As noted in other posts, there are growing areas: RF, home networking, wireless AV, control system, smart grid, smart lighting, energy efficiencies, etc. Get some smart guys together, and see what you can come up with. Move up and down the product/service creation processs and look for your skill matches; you can't expect to have the same type of function.

This type of shift happens often, I saw my Dad go through it. At 50 making too much $$ in pharmaceutical sales and get RIF'd for a young guy at 50% the pay. Works for a year and then the revenue falls off, and my Dad had the last laugh as he was immediately picked up by a competitor company.

For me, in the end, I'd rather be in the US then somewhere else going through this. Also I really think it would be great to see more engr's in politics to really put in some process thinking into these items.....and solve some problems.

9/17/2009 1:40 AM EDT

Let me continue my topic,
I would like to call the 'special low cost zone' something like "Thrifty Industry Park".

It could be located anywhere in US.
People there will be all voluntarily willing to contribute to earth enviorment and US competitiveness.

The base pay for a engineer ~ $800 upper cap at $2000 , same for other office workers. (this ll bring them to the same cost level as those in Shanghai)
If US government can provide some tax breaks and cheap land this ll be even better.

at this salary range an average engineer can live in a 2-bedroom apartment, commute with bike/e-bike/bus. they ll have all electronics such as computer/TV(smaller CRT)/AC etc.

anyway they can survive and enjoy most of the fun in their life(I know many ppl's only entertainment is WWC).

I believe this will be the hope for US high tech's future.

(all right reserved, don't steal my idea, email me to get permission to copy or publish this post)

9/17/2009 4:33 AM EDT

Its not just semiconductor jobs. We are to blame partially. It all starts with the things that we buy. 90% of house, grocery, baby and other daily products we buy are made in China which doesn't help us. Even the computer you are using right now is made in China.

How can we help ourselves? If you look at Netherlands, people there tend to buy and support Made in Netherlands products. It helps that small country keep its jobs there. They have just amazing number of very good local brands. They are a little expensive but they are very good quality.

Lets try to use a little more American made products in our life.

9/17/2009 5:00 AM EDT

u r way 2 simple ,
this will never work,
u can live in a mountain and keep ur job of fishing.
other wise it won't happen.

u don't want to buy foreign computers ,
on the other hand Microsoft will not sell anything as well.

you can go ahead isolate urself and let the rest of world trade and compete...

9/17/2009 8:58 AM EDT

I would be interested in seeing more of that data. A few questions I would have:

1.) Were any of the Chinese engineers educated in the US? (before being trained at MPS)
2.) Was the system architect and product planner part of the China team or a foreign national?
3.) was there any added cost in cultural/language barriers and was it made up for by having people work round the clock?

I don't think there is any doubt that there are some really great engineers coming out of China. The question is if they are themselves driving the new ideas or executing the plans of others. If it is the former situation, then yes, everyone should be worried, including MPS. Because who's to say they won't take their show on the road and create their own company? If it is the latter situation, where the 50 engineers are cranking on a system design laid forth by others, then it's just a design based form of outsourcing. This is also a concern given the salary dispairities but in all reality is just ANOTHER sector that has fallen prey to low prices and "business decisions".

I have no doubt that the situation where the newly trained engineers will begin leaving and forming their own companies will eventually happen; I know this happens in all situations (ie. People leaving National back in the day to form LT) but I think it will happen in greater numbers than expected. The nationalism (wanting to work for a Chinese company) and ambition is high, as is the potential for rewards.

THAT is the handwriting on the walls for the US-trained engineer and the executive teams that are comfortable with outsourcing without realizing the implications. It is only on the day where the investors decide that the executive team and headquarters could contribute to cost savings by moving overseas will everyone realize it's much too late.

9/17/2009 10:10 AM EDT

The costs of using such engineers are often calculated by economists without regard for basic economics common sense. Problems include:
1. By moving the income of technology generation overseas, the income of the target consumers is reduced as net outflow of cash increases.
2. By concentrating training of offshore engineering staff for short term cost reduction, the long term effect of loss of expertise onshore is ignored. This is becoming painfully obvious to universities where the number of US born students studying technical subjects has dwindled to a trickle.
3. The laws and ethics associated with the culture in the off-shore facility are different than those in the US. As such, it is quite common for technology "leakage" to impact long-term viability and profits for the company training their future competition.
4. This also, to some degree, applies to H-1 visa workers. The treatment and pay of these workers is critical to ensure maximum loyalty during their 7 years in the US. Some companies see these workers as a cheap short-term replacement for expensive US citizen engineers, and play games with pay and employment (some companies I am aware of employ a lot of H-1 engineers but only via contracts with some shady "employment agencies"). The result is employees who have felt cheated when working in the US, and return to their country of origin with the corporate secrets of the companies that employed them. At that point, the writing is on the wall. I was informed of one well-known company that found that its parts system had been compromised with sub-standard and un-authorized-source parts by one such worker after he was sent home.

9/17/2009 10:36 AM EDT

The dollar you spend is your vote.

You can spend it in a US product, made by your neighbor and sustain the US economy... or you can buy it from an outsourcing company.

However China is not a good example for quality of life, freedom of thoughts and definitely not a first choice place to grow my kids.

Please use your hard earned dollar wisely.

9/17/2009 12:22 PM EDT

I can appreciate will99878898 comments about having to lower the American standard of living to some extent in order to compete in a "flat world" as Tom Friedman of the NY Times refers to today's world.

But Icarus1 is absolutely right about the excesses of the fat cats on top who will never lower their standards, they'll only keep looking for cheaper and cheaper sources of labor (and yes engineers are labor to them) in order to continue their lavish lifestyles!

I know a guy who was a semiconductor process engineer for many years and got tired of the layoffs and went to law school and became a patent lawyer. He now bills at $300 an hour for his services. Law school is tough I'm sure but graduate engineering school isn't exactly a walk in the park either. I don't know any engineers that can bill at anywhere near $300 an hour.

9/17/2009 1:18 PM EDT

This is part of a China nationalized espionage effort to take our best technology and use it to drive their economy and the finance and operations people who run things in the US these days can't wait to help them by handing it to them because reducing costs today means bonuses today - what happens later well.. Who cares?
Not only are the Chinese engineers less expensive, the software tools they have - which are the best and latest in the world are all free for the most part - stolen and pirated mainly from US companies too. When the "expensive" engineers in the US ask finance for 80K $ of design tools –well hey…” the China guys never ask us for this”. Well of course not buckwheat, it’s all stolen and "free" over there. But make no mistake when companies who are saving today start having to compete with themselves in China when it’s all stolen by a local company there and the market for manufacturing is there. Who do you think they are going to buy from? The "expensive" us company or the knock off copy from China? Once they steal the rest of our stuff they won’t need us any more but hey... We still have bright futures here in hedge fund management and being a lawyer!

9/17/2009 1:22 PM EDT

One more thing...

Sometime this year, we taxpayers will again receive an Economic Stimulus payment. This is a very exciting program. I'll explain it using the Q and A format:


Q. What is an Economic Stimulus payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.



Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.



Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.



Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.



Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China?
A. Shut up.



Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the US economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:

If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart, the money will go to China.
If you spend it on gasoline, your money will go to the Middle East.
If you purchase a computer, it will go to India, Taiwan and China
If you purchase fruit and vegetables, it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala.
If you buy a car, it will go to Japan or Korea.
If you purchase useless stuff, it will go to Taiwan.
If you pay your credit cards off, or buy stock, it will go to management bonuses and they will hide it offshore.
Instead, keep the money in America by:



1 spending it at yard sales, or
2 going to ball games, or
3 spending it on working girls, or
4 beer or
5 tattoos.



(These are the only American businesses still operating in the US .)



Conclusion: Go to a ball game with a tattooed working girl that you met at a yard sale and drink beer all day.

9/17/2009 2:32 PM EDT

Well, engineers are a dime a dozen like factory workers. It takes real skills and leadership talents to do management. This is why I was promoted into management long ago and I and my company have enjoyed the fruits of my outsourcing success!

9/17/2009 2:54 PM EDT

Who do you manage No1Manager if you outsourced all your engineers? That would just make you human resources then...

9/17/2009 3:12 PM EDT

"May you live in interesting times" - Chinese Proverb/Curse

I am 31 years old, I graduated with my EE in 2001 in the middle the dot com bubble bursting and the ramp up of off-shoring. I was laid off within 9 months of graduating and 8 years later I find myself with my 5th company (yes, that is 5 jobs in 8 years). I have been lucky in that I've never been out of work for more then 2 months and the jobs that I have had were great learning opportunities. I have never known the field of engineering prior to off-shoring and have never enjoyed a year where I didn't worry about my job and my future. I am probably the new face of engineering in the US, where the days of working 10+ years at a company and not having to compete against foreign workers is a thing of the past and the best that one can hope for is to be able to string along 10-20 jobs before having an opportunity for a working retirement.

I hold no ill will toward foreign workers since they are out to improve their lives not destroy ours. The companies are just that, companies and its their nature to do whatever they can to raise profits and meet growth targets. Yes, the government could probably do more but I think there are more variables to this equation that most of engineers can fathom (meaning the politicians don't have a clue).

I figure we are the last, around to witness the death of US technical innovation and leadership and the passing of the torch to our brothers in the East, like the crowning of a prince when a king dies, it seems it is their time to lead. This is done, the ship has sailed, and there is nothing we can do about that except to do our best to look after ourselves, no company or government is going to do it for use. Read the Occupational Outlook Handbook from bls.gov engineering is supposed to grow much slower then the average or decline in the decade of 2006-2016. A few years back I told myself I would do engineering for as long as I could, because it is what I love and I really couldn't picture doing anything else, my question is what happens now when that time seems to approaching?

The real efforts that groups like the government, IEEE, etc should not be on how to keep these jobs here in the US (we all know that is not going to happen) but how can we help those 300,000+ engineers who are going to lose their jobs in the coming years to shift to a new career path...what is there for us that no longer have the opportunity to do engineering? clearly a graduate degree in engineering wont do much? and engineering management seems to be following the engineering jobs out the door so what do I do?

9/17/2009 3:55 PM EDT

I am an engineer from China. I'd like to share a history lesson of Chinese outsourcing story and the downfall of the strongest Chinese dynasty. The begining of Tang Dynasty around 618 AD was when China was the strongest. The Han race was the dominating race although there were many large competing races living in the today China at that time. The Han ruling class was very confident and espoused an open culture at that time so talents from many different races served in Han armies although the top level generals were all Han race who were very capable themselves. In a series of expansion wars Tang army pushed the border to the farthest ever controlled by Han people. Many military officiers from other ethnic background played very important roles during those wars but they never made to the very top. After all major competitors were vanquished or placified, Han people started to turn to comfortable lifes and avoided military duties. So dynasty army began to be filled with more and more foot soldiers from non-Han races. At the beginning, top-level generals were dominated by Han race, but as years went by, more lieutenants and eventually generals had to be promoted from the rank and file who were mostly non-Han people. Finally, at 755 AD, a non-Han general rebelled against the Han dominated central government. By that time, Han people had enjoyed over 100 years of relative peace and were no longer ready for wars. The rebellion wreaked huge havoc and caused enormous damage to the society until it was put down eight years later. But the Chinese society never fully recovered from that blow. Although there were many reasons for the prolonged downfall of chinese culture over the past 1000+ years, the majority of historians agreed that the 755 AD rebellion marked the beginning of the over 1000 years of downfall of Chinese culture, all the way to today. People make mistakes all the time, but they can recover if they are in control of their lives. But when a society was distressed and under duress, their mistakes could compound their problems and force them into a vicious cycle. For example, Chinese culture started to turn inward and more restrictive afterwards as Han people found it harder and harder to compete against surrounding races. Although we should not blame everything on outsourcing, but outsourcing a critical function of the society to non-Han people played a critical role in bringing down the Han race.

9/17/2009 5:20 PM EDT

Personally as a consultant who gets called in to cleanup a lot of outsourcing-goes-bad projects I think outsourcing is great!

Outsourcing is here to stay and we need to find a way to innovate here in the US and leverage what people overseas can deliver.

What's always surprised me is how much risk people will put into unproven business methods, let me give you one example

1. we're going to hire 50-100 NCGs and put them on a massively complicated hardware/software project with no training and a few 3-5yr experienced managers, and they will deliver everything on-time & budget

- no executive I ever knew would make that call, ever. No VC would fund it.

2. replace "NCGs" with "outsourced partner engineers" and all of a sudden it's a slam
dunk. Why! Everyone loves a bargain? VCs
pile in?

But it rarely works, and heads roll all over the place, and the big problem is all those people in the outsourced shop are inevitably blamed although they were basically setup to fail.

9/17/2009 5:33 PM EDT

This wave of globalization and outsourcing has been accompanied by persistent US current account deficits. This is unsustainable, and eventually the US will have to get back in the game of exports (goods and/or services), which will probably benefit US engineers.

The situation with China is straightforward. China has run a persistent trade surplus. Instead of buying US goods and services with the earnings, it buys US Treasuries. At some point, as the US economy drags and government deficits grow, China won't (or at least shouldn't!) be willing to buy US assets anymore. At that point, they can't do anything to prevent a rebalance in trade flows. Either they buy US goods, or sell their dollars to somebody else (depressing the dollar and making the US more competitive), or let the RMB appreciate (which also makes the US more competitive).

The situation with India is not as clear-cut, because India has also been running a trade deficit since 2005 (1% of GDP in 2007, vs. 5% of GDP for the US). However, it's plausible that the USD will depreciate against INR, which would help US engineers.

Other export-driven economies (Japan, Korea, Germany) also stand to lose jobs to the US, even though they get less coverage in the outsourcing debate.

When the dollar declines, US engineers will suffer as consumers, but our employment prospects will brighten. I say, bring it on!

9/17/2009 5:45 PM EDT

As the article mentioned, salary is about 1/5th to 1/10th of the US Engg salary. But there are several factors that disadvantages for engineering work in China.
1. The management seems to loose control over the working of the engineering groups. There is a lot of work done in stealth without management approval. This leads to loss of money and efficiency.
2. We noticed that the motivation and quality suffer incredibly compared to US engineers. Most of the time we noticed that about 5 to 7 engineers are required in China for equivalent work of one effective US engineer. We lost a lot of market advantage and money to learn from this experience.
3. Even today after so many years of experience outsourcing we still don't have clear IP-protection plan. There were at least a few occasions where we had to track down proprietary information leak to competitors and would be competitors. Just as there are so many iphone copies in asia and there is nothing to stop them.

I believe that the innovative and efficient engineers in US don't have anything to worry about. Although the engineering work that does not need a lot of expertise may be moved to other countries much sooner.

9/17/2009 6:37 PM EDT

Most are missing the key point: the worse is yet to come. According to a US Government report, China is dissatified with most foreign investments that did not bring in core technologies. Chinese Government has launched policies to move the country up on the technology ladder. With this, plus Democrat and Republican are busy fighting each other, things can only get worse......

9/17/2009 6:55 PM EDT

We have created this problem ourselves here in the US. Most of it has been fueled by greed. Let me elaborate.
1. How may times have you seen profitable companies lay off workers just so they can increase profits. (IBM, AT&T). It gets the guys at the top larger bonuses.
2. Since there has not been any real wage growth for the rest of us, we constantly look to buy things cheaper and cheaper. As a result manufacturers outsource things to China, India, Vietnam...etc , so now your neighbor doesn't have a job, and the town is not collecting business taxes from that factory, so your taxes go up, etc....It's all related.

3.Our government has not helped us by penalizing the cheap imports from factories with foreign government subsidies, made with slave labor (100+ hrs/week) that make American labor uncompetitive. We were not and are now not dealing with a level playing field.

4. H1B Visas- Grant them to students before they graduate, so companies don't hire them at lower wages than American engineers. This would allow them not to be held hostage at lower wages by the company that hires them.
There are some companies that have >75% of all there new hires as H1B holders, just because they can get them cheaper. Maybe the reverse should be true, and companies should have to pay the government a royalty to employ a H1B holder.

5. To answer the guy from China, will99878898, the best I can say is "shove it". American engineers are the most creative and productive in the world. Our European colleagues are not that far behind us. That is because WE live in a free society. My parents did not come to this country and bust their buts for me and my family to live like Communists under a totalitarian government. We may not have the best system, but it is a far better system than the pseudo freedom that you live under.

The bottom line is we need to reset our priorities across businesses and need to make sure we are on a level playing field.

9/17/2009 7:32 PM EDT

H1 visa guys, There is problem

9/17/2009 7:52 PM EDT

I have visited all seven continents and learned much. Before WW2 economic times were a far worse. Our parents won a difficult war and we boomers inherited an economic bonanza. We were born on third base and believe we hit a home run. Our international friends are right, the playing field is now more level. Our diversity is a great advantage however and we will be fine. Even if our cars and houses shrink a bit.
BTW I am not so sure it was boomers who put a man on the moon.The Apollo project started in 1963 when I was 16.
Thanks again dad.

9/17/2009 8:28 PM EDT

Well said, hightec. I think US engineers need to stop whining. You help develop computers, and then complain when they work better than you do. You help develop the internet, and then, when distance is no longer as large a hurdle to collaboration, you complain about offshoring.
I enjoy creating system efficiency, and I don't cry when that efficiency means fewer meaningless jobs. Engineers should do useful work, not just technical work.
Don't blame the H1B guys because you want to be paid more for the same job. If China and India were innovating like America, there would not be the demand for H1Bs that there are. People in general are resistant to change, but change is what engineering is all about. We change the world for the better, and that means things become obsolete. Engineering is often mistaken for highly skilled technical work, whereas it really is problem solving through rigorous application of methodology and experience and the US does very well at this. Engineers who do this kind of work are always in demand.

9/17/2009 8:54 PM EDT

I couldn't agree more DTbilir. Your comments about embracing change and continuous improvement really resonated. Those basic qualities will keep an engineer employed. Robotic jobs are doomed to low pay. Designing/supporting the "robots" is where the money is at. With all the churn in the job market I can understand why some feel tempoarily frustrated though.

9/18/2009 1:12 AM EDT

some good news for yo all.

an average 2-bedroom apartment in Beijing now can cost USD 150,000 !!!
the living cost in many part of china is just skyrocketing ...
so it won't take decades, maybe only a few years when China get same expensive and everyone can have peace then.

9/18/2009 4:00 AM EDT

Here is an article I read in the Business Week that I think you will all find interesting. Am quoting the first couple of paragraphs here:

In the 1980s, the U.S. was consumed with fear that Japan would become the preeminent power in manufacturing and technology. Those fears never came to pass. Today the same fears are focused on China. The Middle Kingdom appears to be an even more daunting foe, with its enormous foreign reserves, fast-growing economy, oceans of scientists and engineers, and enormous subsidies to high-tech companies. How real is the China threat?

There is no doubt that China is making rapid strides in both infrastructure and technology, but U.S. anxiety of being overtaken by China appears to be misplaced. It takes more than money and might to achieve innovation. This is what I learned when researching the inflated estimates of engineering graduation rates in China and by analyzing its pharmaceutical industry. And this is one of the key findings in a new book titled Chips and Change: How Crisis Reshapes the Semiconductor Industry (MIT Press). Written by professors Clair Brown and Greg Linden of the University of California at Berkeley, the book provides a wealth of information about semiconductor development cycles as well as a fresh and informed look at some of China's key technological capabilities in those realms.

Read the complete article at:

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/sep2009/gb2009093_559266.htm

9/18/2009 4:43 AM EDT

Didn't read the full BW article. But it's absolutely 2 naive to think US 'll have any advantage in 'creativity' etc.
If the author is compareing/digging into china's semi-industry they could find it's quite backward or a chaos.
chinese semicon is years behind for many reasons including foreign restrictions.

consider the case of TSMC, a 30millon ppl island can support/generate such a company, it won't be surprising to
see china have similar stuff in few years.

You guys are just 2 nerdy in misunderstanding the big pictures.
Chinese Auto industry looks like a joke 10 years ago, now it's not that far behind US.

you need to remember , there is NO difference in IQ, EQ, creativity etc.among ppl, what will matter later is the whole population/resources.
that's why Japan will never take over US, or Finland will never take oven Japan.
but Finland will have their smartest people building a cellphone company no Japan company can compare.

There is creative ppl everywhere, don't get yourself fooled.

what u ll see is a equilbrium process...

9/18/2009 6:32 AM EDT

I used to be an analog/mixed signal design engineer worked for a semi company in Bay Area. I went to Shanghai four years ago and started an IC design house here. I post some first hand facts.

- China is the #1 Auto market in 2008 will be the #1 in 2009 in the word!
- China has the #1 internet population!
- China is the #1 cellphone market!
- China is the #1 TV, and other house appliance market!
- China is the #1 PC market!
............

It is funny to hear you guys are talking about "out sourcing" jobs. Just ask your top managers which country contributes your top revenu growthing. These jobs are NOT naturally Amercan's jobs simply because these sales are not happening in the USA. The end users are not in the USA either!

My company started with $300m, now has $15m revenu and $2.5m net profits. A smart engineer in Shanghai costs about $2500 per month. Far more expensive than you guys thought, and the salary increase is about 10% each year. A decent two-bedroom apartment in Shanghai costs about $200k~$400k depens on the location. The living cost in Shanghai is never as low as you guys thought!

Why I start-up an design house in Shanghai? The answer is the local market opportunity. The high growth provides much more opportunities in China than in the USA now.

9/18/2009 6:48 AM EDT

Sorry, just want to make a correction. My company starts with $3m, not $300m.

9/18/2009 7:16 AM EDT

The article doesnt refer to traits of the Chinese people .. It is talking about the free markets and the environment available for innovation present in the US and absent elsewhere.

Govt. intervention in the Seminconductor Fabrication industry has led the Chinese Govt. to invest in building more fabs when already there is excess capacity today.

Compare this to the free markets in the US where Broadcom, Nvidia and Qualcomm have become the largest fabless semiconductor companies in the world, with one of them being found by a Taiwanese immigrant to the US.

9/18/2009 9:00 AM EDT

Engineering salaries come back to simple supply and demand issues. There is increased supply from other countries, so salaries will go down in the US. It is getting easier to outsource engineering related jobs. Question - how often have you heard about an MBA's position being outsourced? They have figured out a way to drive down one of their input costs by importing H1-B's and outsourcing engineering positions to low cost countries. This is how the system works. I don't think it is possible to fight it. I will encourage my kids to take a different career path. And next time you hear about a shortage of US engineers, point out that it is because it is a difficult degree to earn compared with the declining financial return.

9/18/2009 12:48 PM EDT

Working here at a University I see a lot of Asian and Indian students, but I don't see a lot of original innovation or creativity. We still are the place where they come to learn. I am heartened to see that the generation comming up,is again seeing the value in learning to fix somthing, rather than throw it away.

9/18/2009 12:48 PM EDT

Working here at a University I see a lot of Asian and Indian students, but I don't see a lot of original innovation or creativity. We still are the place where they come to learn. I am heartened to see that the generation comming up,is again seeing the value in learning to fix somthing, rather than throw it away.

9/18/2009 8:18 PM EDT

good point here on why multi-nationals should invest in their markets country.

I suggest each such company should invest a percentage similar with market share to every country.
They need to have a global view instead of trying to put all the money in their own pocket.

Intel is doing fairly cool here.

another topic:

why offshoring?

One easy reason is cost.

Another one no one really mentioned here is talent.

I have been observing a US and a European company closely for many years.
what happened there is they don't have enough talented engineers to fill the vacancies.
esp. those with skill and decent moral (honest etc.)

the consequences is quite serious.

Many such company's trick to prosper is maintain a decent moral value level so it won't get eat up 2 fast.
but it almost never works if you want to teach a sinner to become a saint (unless they reborn ).
To fill in some urgent positions they have to use some 'sinners', those are good and fast in climbing and destroying in your org.
Qimonda just disappeared mainly for this reason. (

Another company met a small/medium engineering problem, and it took them 3 months can't fix it ...
those expats are just not fit with their shoes.

on the other hand , china have 1 billion ppl their waiting for you. You can dig out plenty of ppl fits your company's surviving moto and train them.
in the end it ll just take 3-5 years for them to be able to replace you. (reality is so , your knowledge is not so unreachable...)

------
another comment on creativity.

many americans are having a illusion. they are partly cheated because they are seeing mostly high scored --- book worms in US campus.
If you travel to China you ll see the original/wild creative side of chinese ppl.

I saw several different versions of skateing boards invented in last few year by local folks which is just amazing

(if anyone want to hire me to write a column plz email me)

9/18/2009 8:19 PM EDT

man, it take me 5-6 times to pass the sanity test... so has cut many sensitive words..

9/19/2009 3:31 PM EDT

I'd just like to say something to all my fellow engineering brothers and sisters out there no matter where they are, China, India, the US or wherever. The one thing I can say for all of us is that as engineers we don't typically lie for a living. Unlike lawyers, politicians, public relations people, CEO's, and wall street investment bankers, we are more likely to tell the truth in our profession. Either you design and build something that works or it doesn't. The numbers don't lie, people do. Engineers for the most part don't get paid to lie, they get paid to make things work.

In that respect, I hope we can all set aside our differences and figure out a way to make this profession work for all of us no matter were we live. The world is now faced with some of the biggest challenges ever known in terms of the survivability of our species, the biggest of which being energy and the environment. It's going to be up to us to solve these problems because no one else can.

Politicians will think of dealing with energy and the environment in terms of how many votes is it going to get them or how many jobs in their district, the CEO in terms of the size of his stock options and annual bonus, the wall street guys the value of there IPO, lawyers the value of the intellectual property, the public relations guys with their green this and green that, all they care about is brain washing and selling something to the public.

For them it's always about money but for us it's about the thrill of solving problems using skills like math and science in which we went to school for years to develop. Skills that are built around centuries of effort by likes of Issac Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein all of who did not lie for a living. We should be proud to use the gifts they gave us as well as to following in their footsteps by standing united and not allowing lies and the liars who tell them to divide us.

9/20/2009 12:33 AM EDT

test

9/20/2009 12:44 AM EDT

I've been down-sized a couple of times in the past few years. Each time I look for a new job 85% of the interviewers are Koreans, Chinese, or Indian. Let's face it, if all other things are equal people are going to hire the person in their own ethnic group. I've witnessed this myself as the minority ethnic group in a large team of Engineers in a US based company. One fellow there bragged that he was one of the first Indians to work there, and now the Engineering staff is 80% Indians. Non-imigrant caucasian Engineers are disadvantaged in the hunt for an Engineering job in the United States. I don't know if this is a result of a shortage of American Engineers, but I do know that there are well qualified American Engineers out of work.

9/20/2009 11:41 AM EDT

lol,
there are so many ways for an engineer do bad thing,
ie. cheating, copying, stealing etc.

you can't define the importance of a work by number a lot of times.
how many times you see a project completed but credit goes to wrong ppl?

it need a lot of moral for a group of engineers working together peacefully...

9/20/2009 3:20 PM EDT

I have been an EE for about 40 years and I thought that I would throw out a few things.

First of all get the best credentials you can. Spend the time to get that EIT and PE. Today probably 80% of the EE jobs in my area of the Southeast are in construction and require a PE. I never bothered to get my PE so I'm locked out unless I do. I think it's easier right out of school rather than 40 years later.

Second if you want to work in the Military/ Aerospace area, start early. It can take decades to learn the ins and outs of government beaurocracy. Many of these companies will only hire senior folks with experience in the area.

Third be flexible. Early on I worked through the demise of the machine tool industry and the consumer electronics industry in the US. Whole industries can disappear overnight and there is great disapear over this. However new more innovative ones can take their place and have.

If you want to work in product development, you need to be both innovative and close to the customer. The company I work for now really does not care about IP. I design low cost consumer products that get shipped off shore to be produced. The big deal is time to market and being first. After something is successful and commoditized, it will be copied over and over and driven to the lowest possible cost. Thus, there is no longer a need for a high cost EE. There is a need for a high cost EE to turn local ideas into workable concepts quickly.

Just a few thoughts.

loree

9/21/2009 2:45 AM EDT

Thank you Iroee. you got the point!

9/21/2009 2:38 PM EDT

The following is from Applied Materials website. There were THREE, yes I said only THREE engineering jobs in all of the US at Applied Materials. Yet the following is only 1 page out of 5 for engineering jobs in China, Singapore and Taiwan. The writing is on the wall for US engineers: GET OUT OF ENGINEERING

Technologist III - (37)
Asia-China-Shaanxi-CHN,Xi'An

Job Number 0901373
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart


System Design Engineer IV - (37)
Asia-China-Shaanxi-CHN,Xi'An

Job Number 0901371
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart


Production Engineer Senior - (35)
Asia-Taiwan, Republic of China-T'ai-nan-TWN,Tainan

Job Number 0901199
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart


Production Engineer Senior - (35)
Asia-Taiwan, Republic of China-T'ai-nan-TWN,Tainan

Job Number 0901236
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart


Production Engineer Senior - (35)
Asia-Taiwan, Republic of China-T'ai-nan-TWN,Tainan

Job Number 0901198
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart


Production Engineer Senior - (35)
Asia-Taiwan, Republic of China-T'ai-nan-TWN,Tainan

Job Number 0901237
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart


Production Engineer II - (34)
Asia-Taiwan, Republic of China-T'ai-nan-TWN,Tainan

Job Number 0901326
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart


Graduate Positions for Engineering
Asia-Singapore-Singapore

Job Number 0900458
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart


Equipment Engineer I - (32)
Asia-China-Shaanxi-CHN,Xi'An

Job Number 0803147
Apply
|Add to My Job Cart


Engineering Technician Senior - (32)
Asia-Singapore-Singapore-SGP,Boon Lay

Job Number 0901334

9/21/2009 5:10 PM EDT

Xilinx has more job openings in the US than India, so does Altera, Analog, National Semi, and even Texas Instruments who I thought had a love affair with India and would stop hiring here in the US. No one is more jaded about outsourcing and engineering in the US more than I am, but am I finally over the whining stage and what I really want to do now is understand the whole picture so I can adjust my career as needed. Everyone here and publications like EE Times tend to focus on a single company or event, very few have put together a substantial study of engineering trends in the US, Europe, and Asia. India and China are emerging markets and it makes sense to do business and development there. A good example of that is video game development, I bet Indian programmers have a better grasp about what the Indian population wants to see in terms of a video game than we do here in America. The key thing to look at is if whether these companies are putting all their eggs in the emerging markets and forgetting about the US. One example of this is China Telecom, at one point I heard that they had close to 300+ million customers in China, that's like saying that every citizen of the United States is your customer. If I was a cell phone designer/manufacturer I would see the 300 million cell phones I could sell in China as being a bit more important than the smaller amount I could sell in the US. It seems to me like we need their imports more than they need us to buy them at the rate in which their economies are growing...yet we don't really know how this all ties together with offshoring, the decline in engineering students in the US, rising cost of living in Asia, the retirement of the baby boomers, etc. An in depth study is what is really needed here before we convince ourselves that the twilight of our industry is indeed here.

9/21/2009 6:06 PM EDT

Is your head in the sand???

Do a google, look at the books and studies on Amazon.com alone, for crying out loud, they have "Outsourcing for Dummy's" book!

The last I saw the IEEE's USA position statement was:

"The offshoring of high wage jobs from the United States to lower cost overseas locations is currently contributing to unprecedented levels of unemployment among American electrical, electronics and computer engineers. Offshoring also poses a very serious, long term challenge to the nation's leadership in technology and innovation, its economic prosperity, and its military and homeland security."

This was based off of extensive studies.

Perhaps you were one of the people saying we had the greatest financial institutions in the world only a year ago? Hum?

9/21/2009 6:29 PM EDT

Sorry "asicman" if I sounded a little "testy" - I appologize :-(

It's just my 22+ years in this industry and I've never seen it so bad, I have more engineering buddies out of work now then the combined sum of engineers I've seen in the previous 21 years. These are good people, with houses, family's, little kids, etc.. Excellent engineers, some with PhD's, others from awesome schools (e.g., Berkley). This whole subject really gets my "feelings" going for these folks. I know a few who have had to take jobs in other industries, they are NO LONGER engineers just so they can keep paying their mortgage and put food on the table.

My dad was an Electrical Engineer, his dad was in engineering also. They helped build this country. Yes I understand global economics, yes I am very happy for my fellow brothers in other countries getting employment in engineering. Yes I know part of the outsourcing is due to "it makes better sense to do it there then here for various reasons other then cost". NO I DO NOT THINK WE HAVE A LOCK ON CREATIVITY. Perhaps there is something about our eco-system here in, e.g., Silicon Valley that encourages creativity, but it's got little or nothing to do with just being a US engineer. I saw NC dump lot's of money and lot's of good US engineers into trying to make RTP like Silicon Valley but it never happened. And I use Silicon Valley as they example of creativity, yes, there was also Route 128 in MA, and good old AT&T in Allentown and NJ, but those places are history now.

Any way, I'm rambling now, too much caffeine :-)

9/21/2009 6:40 PM EDT

It would be interesting to see how easy it would be for one of us to get a job in India or China, even if we did accept a lower wage. Would they give us a work visa, a permanent resident visa, would they let us become citizens after x number of years?

9/21/2009 8:56 PM EDT

Litho guy
Process Development
commented on Sep 21, 2009 6:40:56 PM
It would be interesting to see how easy it would be for one of us to get a job in India or China, even if we did accept a lower wage. Would they give us a work visa, a permanent resident visa, would they let us become citizens after x number of years?
--------------

I don't know about India, but in China it's extremely easy( to work).
they still treat foreigners as contributors(expert/investors) to their economy instead of competitors in job market.

there are plenty of UKs/americans around making same amount as local folks in China. Also plenty of expats making wages in US standard and live like in paradise.

9/21/2009 9:24 PM EDT

for those who have trouble in finding a job in US and want to continue in engineering path come to China might be an option.

Some companies such as Applied as mentioned above is having trouble in getting senior positions filled for their offshore office.

They ll pay you definitely at the upper local level.

your life won't be misereable.
As I observed the major difference could be your house. it's generally 2 expensive in China.

So your life could be like getting a job at downtown NY. Don't worry about electronics/furnitures/food they are all super cheap.

9/21/2009 11:31 PM EDT

I am in a team of running an analog/mixed signal design house in Shanghai. I had worked in Bay Area for 8 years as a senior IC design engineer after got my Ph.D. degree in America. I am also an American citizen. I'd like to give some suggestions to buddies who are interested in jobs in China (Actually, I believe very few people consider this alternative).

- As a tech manager, I would hire a couple of analog IC design engineers with 10+ years of experience paying salaries at America level. However, if our product line is stable and local engineers are more experienced. I would ask you either go home or lower your salary to local standard.

- An IC design engineer in China is required to be a project leader. That means you need to communicate with FAE, foundries, and customers. If you can't speak Chinese, your contribution to our company is very limited.

- You can choose to work in some American companies who open design centers in China, like ADI, TI, MPS, etc. You can enjoy American standard salary and speak English only. However, those are usually not long term position unless you are a top manager.

Open your own business in China is a better choice. I knew some smart engineers from America open their design houses in China and is making a lot money. The IC design start-up stories in America is rare now, but in China it is the time.

9/22/2009 1:32 PM EDT

It seems to me that we have two options:

1) We push for free markets and suffer the differentials in wages,

or

2) We erect protectionist barriers and risk being outmaneuvered by another better protectionist.


Which one is better for us?

9/22/2009 3:09 PM EDT

see:
"Are U.S. Jobs Moving to China?” IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies, September 2003, pp. 682–686.

9/22/2009 4:01 PM EDT

Hey "Semiconductor Design Engineer", it's OK to blow off some steam :) I'm sure all that ASICMAN was trying to do was to help us American engineers try and think optimistically, but I agree with you man, this engineering job loss situation in the US is completely out of control!

I was in a PhD program in analog and RF design at a top tier engineering school and I threw the whole thing overboard. I came to the realization I'd be lucky to be teaching high school algebra when I was done and I didn't want to spend any more time and money on it.

I know several people who got out of engineering and went into business administration (MBA), or became physical therapists, or lawyers. Not one of them regretted it and they are all now making six figure salaries.

For me, I'm thinking about either network engineering or energy engineering. There seems to be jobs in those areas. If anybody has information on this please let me know.

The network engineering stuff seems more like IT work to be honest where a lot of the jobs are network administration to do things like hand out passwords although there are network design and architecting jobs that are more interesting and might require a real engineering background.

A lot of people without engineering degrees get these CISCO certifications (CCNA, CCNP, CCIE, etc.) and become "network engineers" although like I said it seems more like IT work then real engineering but hey a paycheck is a paycheck.

The energy engineering is interesting stuff involving computer simulation of buildings and HVAC systems but it's more mechanical engineering involving a lot of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics. As an EE I'd really have to play catchup on all the thermodynamics and fluid mechanics. I'm not sure how competitive I'd be going up against ME's.

9/22/2009 6:08 PM EDT

Hey guys...I guess I missed getting my point across with my previous post, I was not trying to be optimistic at all, personally I think US engineers are screwed...period. I graduated 2001, I've had 5 jobs in 8 years and been laid off once. While I acquired some really good skills and have never been out of a job for more than 2 months, I have never known a period, of any length of time, in my professional career where I didn't worry about my job and outsourcing/offshoring. I don't have my head in the sand, its actually the opposite, I am looking for a hill top so I can get the lay of the land. I know adjustments have to be made, it would be stupid for me to say that I continue to be a practicing engineer for the rest of my life here in the US, but where I am stuck is not being able to figure out what the next move should be. Some studies say that green tech is where all US engineers should move to, others say its defense contracting, others tell you to teach and get the kids interested in engineering (yeah right), others say get a graduate degree, MBA, law degree, etc. Then you turn around and others, like US News are reporting that engineering is one of the hot employment fields, or that law work and financial work is also being outsourced...there just doesn't seem to be a concise opinion on what going on, we have no leadership from the government or our own industry groups, or even higher education institutions (they gave up on us and focus more on actively recruiting foreign students, not locals). You can see this when reading this forum, you get "sky is falling down" group of people who just seem mad and are venting (completely understandable), another is the "don't worry" group saying nothing is really going to change, we went through this with the Japanese in the 80s and we are still here, then there are the "realists", who I like to think I am a part of, who know the writing is on the wall but don't really have a vague idea as to what to do. All am asking for, since our leaders can't really do anything about the jobs going away, is to be provided with accurate and honest information that I can use to plan what little future I have left.

On the other hand, if anyone in Asia is looking for digital ASIC/FPGA designer with an emphasis in communications let me know, I currently have a job but with no family or mortgage I wouldn't mind picking up and moving for a few years, I think it would be a grand adventure. I lack Chinese language skills but I can always pick up a copy of Rosetta Stone if need be.

9/22/2009 10:43 PM EDT

Hey 'asicman', here are some chinese job websites: www.51job.com, www.chinahr.com

they are all in chinese but go ahead search your job in English cause many company use English for job listing.

My feeling is you don't have to chase all the trend cause it could waste all your experience. it might be better to stick with what you are comfortable with. it might also be ok to suffer some lifestyle change such as from a BMW(if u have one) to a civic.

If someone hires you they ll take care of all paperwork so don't worry about this part.

have fun man...

9/23/2009 2:31 PM EDT

This is short, but to the point: (1) accept offshoring as a consequence of free market, or (2) protect your home jobs at any cost and loose the battle later on the marketplace.

I wrote about this a few days back: http://bit.ly/46HrA

I still believe that in the long run and at a global scale, we'll be better off. The problem is the time it takes to ripe the benefit of lower production cost, increased market size abroad, and finally have the home country economy benefit from offshoring. It takes years, sometime a generation. China is a good example: it is now the fastest growing market for a number of products, including consumer electronics, because they now have money to spend (and they have plenty!) after being the #1 offshoring destination for low-tech products in the 80's (e.g., clothing, plastic apparel, toys). US is the #1 customer of China, and China is a huge market opportunity for many US companies.

Now that doesn't mean that people that got outsourced should endorse the idea of a long-term benefit they may never enjoy. For an engineer that invested quite a lot of energy and money into her education, it is depressing to see her job being moved to India or China so easily. It is even more depressing to see that most of the high-tech companies, especially in software (that includes the giants MSFT, GOOG, YHOO, etc), invest more in lower-wage countries than at home. As engineers, we are in that transition time where the "production" aspect of HW/SW is moved to India and China, even though most of the design and creation still remains at home. Lots of jobs are being lost, and will not come back. Only those that will find an expertise niche will be able to sell their talent.

It rises the question of a national strategy for education though, or the lack thereof. Sadly, today I would discourage my kids to follow an engineer track unless they fully understand the risk. The engineer of tomorrow will be more like an entrepreneur or high-end technologist that change jobs often (every 2-3 years), who creates new products that are later productized and maintained somewhere else. It is a trend that we see in the Silicon Valley, and I don't think it will stop.

9/23/2009 4:06 PM EDT

I think there's still a need for EEs in the U.S. One just has to be smart about their focus and pick a niche market that makes sense.

When I was in college (early 2000s) I interned for a company that made consumer products (home appliances). It became very clear to me that very little actual engineering work was taking place in the U.S. ; most all of the detailed (i.e. interesting) EE related work was outsourced to low cost Korean companies. The U.S. based offices primarily focused on QA and management. (with QA heading overseas shortly after I left)

After graduation, I seeked out a job in a place that was not oriented towards consumer electronics. I now work for a small electronics company that focuses on high end, low-volume products for military/aerospace usage. This market is much less cost-sensitive, and much more focused on quality and direct technical support (from english-speaking engineers on the same side of the planet as the customer). I think this and other types of "high end" EE work will never be outsourced overseas.

9/23/2009 5:34 PM EDT

Just checked out the Chinese job search website "www.51job.com" given to us by will99878898.

I typed in the search word "analog" and got 183 jobs in the last day and 254 jobs in the last two days. I compared that to monster.com which gives similar statistics for jobs in the US and I got 22 jobs in the last day and 58 jobs in the last two days. Careful inspection of the Chinese jobs reveals many of these jobs are high end circuit design jobs, not low end assembly, packaging or test jobs.

To those who think they can survive by working defense and government electronics we'll see how many of those "good jobs" are going to be around in the coming decades with the US government running unprecedented trillion dollar deficits.

I friend of mine calls the US the second Roman Empire. I sincerely hope he's wrong.

9/26/2009 5:24 PM EDT

The big problem with H1-B visas is that they lock in engineers. If you are an engineering manager, you know you can give the least rewarding jobs to H1Bs without complaints, and that they will work more hours per week if requested, without showing up as a salary disparity, since they have a hard time leaving the job. This makes the H1B worker more valuable to management than the US citizen assuming they are both equally capable and have the same salary. On the other hand, if you have a really top-notch international candidate that is better than any US citizen you can find, you can never be sure that you can hire the person here because of the lottery system for allocating them in good years.

My solution is just to to have Homeland Security auction off a fixed number (say 20,000) of green-cards (on EBay or whatever) with a minimum bid of say $30k for professionals with advanced degrees. If the engineer you want to hire is really that outstanding, management will pay to hire the guy. This way the US citizen engineer at a particular salary grade is at a cost advantage rather than disadvantage, and management can hire the superstars whenever they want. Google will be able to hire the international geniuses, and Wipro won't have a cost advantage when bringing in guys from India vs. the US citizens.

10/16/2009 12:06 PM EDT

I say we also outsource bottom-liners, lawyers, representatives, senators and finance CEOs.
That will bring their wages and egos down to a more realistic level.
Say a career politician pulls a fast one. Like not pay his taxes. We''ll send his job fast to India or China.
If he complains we'll give him a Singapore bamboo whacking. Same for finance CEOs
And when, and if, lawyers start to realize, hey, this offshoring deal is not such a good thing after all,
well then we'll let join the end of the line behind the engineers.
Wouldn't love to wire your congressman somewhere in SE Asia and ask why is he doing such a crummy job?
Cut his salary in half. Take away his benefits like health insurance and retirement plans?
Make sure he doesn't feel secure about his job anymore.
And if he doesn't like we can talk to him about some new and exciting opportunities as a second tour of duty in Afganistan.
Corporate bottom-liners should be amongst the first to go. Maybe that way they'll realize that the bottom line is not so good after all.

10/16/2009 2:19 PM EDT

I think there's more to it than just lower pay. I think that US jobs and careers are to institutionalized.

My wife being from China, I recently got back from a visit to various places there. In China, people just do whatever they can and need to do to make a living. If a store needs somebody to clean up a vacant shop site so that they can open a new store there, people seem to just show up and they hire and pay them on the spot. If you want to sell trinkets on the street, you just find a good area of the sidewalk, spread out a cloth put your trinkets on them and start selling.

In the US, it's very different. I'm an engineer, so I have to do engineering work, right? I also signed an employee agreement that basically says that my company owns every idea my mind conceives, so I can't invent anything and market it myself, even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with my company. Not too many outlets for iinnovation or entrepreneurialism there... If I wanted to sell trinkets on the street, I'd have to hire an attorney to write up contracts with the city and the nearby businesses to use that particular patch of sidewalk, pay rent for it, and get a sales-tax permit. I'd also have to incorporate myself, so that when (not if) somebody sues me, I won't lose my future.

And of course don't get me started with the old, "it's a Union call"!

In the US, we're really stiff about making a living.

10/19/2009 1:51 PM EDT

Well, if you want to "sell trinkets on the street"? How about just going to your local flee market, craigslist, or the other myriad of mechanisms for selling homemade beer warmers or what not...

10/20/2009 4:18 PM EDT

Hello,

I am a Electronic Technician here in the Chicagoland area and I just received this weeks copy of EE times. I have some issues with the wining that is going on. Since choosing technology as a career I have come to the conclusion that everything that I do is project oriented. Whatever I do has a beginning and an end that leads me onto my next project. I have worked for many local small business and they also have a beginning and an end. I currently own a business and I know that it too will have an end.

One of the concepts that I have recently come across is a concept I call "team jumping" a team of engineers and technicians will jump from one project to another knowing what they may have learned from the last project may apply or may not apply to the next. Sometimes the team will incorporate and use a businsess model for a while, create something, license it off to somebody else, write the final checks to the team members and then desolve the business. Onward to the next big idea they go! Ideas just don't run off to china by themselves. If the idea runs off to china before it gets to fuition, scrap it and start on something new!

The longer you keep it off the web and limit your market to local rather than a global audience, the better off you are. Newspapers were great for this.

An example of this would be a population of 60,000 people at one point had a Chevy, ford, and Plymouth dealer. They all advertised in the newspaper at different times of the week and they all profited. Today, those same 3 dealers compete with other Chevy, ford, and Plymouth dealers along with the Kia, Honda and Toyotas. All the consumer has to do today is start his computer and browse web for a particular car within driving distance and magically he can choose from 100 different dealers for the same car.

Yours,
John

10/22/2009 9:48 AM EDT

The company I work for has engineering in China, but they are the application layer only. We develop the OS and hardware interface layers, as this seems to take too long for our engineering in China. My guess is that they don't have the education and experience to do this (I've seen their code on other programs, and it is not well organized and definitely not modular).
Right now we have a group developing the OS and hardware interface for their program. So, someone in management figured out this division of labor based on expertise (at least for my group) and it seems to be going well.
We are also hoping the software we develop can be used on other programs here in the US.

Good and Bad: The good of this is that we are doing work for products to be sold in China, the bad is we are giving our Chinese engineers our work - perhaps that will end up being bad if they take over all development of software.

So far, it is looking good.

10/22/2009 11:24 AM EDT

Yes, US engineers are at risk unless they identify where their customers are and what those customers want. Sitting in Silicon Valley cubicles will not tell them what challenges their customers are facing in India, China, Brazil, Russia, Eastern Europe, Middle East and elsewhere.

How many cell phone designers would think that having an integrated flash light is more important than MP3 player for someone in India? How many will realize that 24 hour electricity is a luxury not enjoyed my vast majority in many countries. Or an automobile smaller than Ford Fiesta will carry 7-8 people, having GPS or 6-CD changer in the car is a luxury for a limited few.

The bottom line is start looking at the opportunities liberization of heavily populated economies present, take advantage of those opportunities and emerge as winner.

10/25/2009 7:21 PM EDT

If they could, those Chinese engineers would move to the US, keeping innovation here. Raising H1-B visa limits makes US politicians appear to voters as soft on illegal immigration. Tight H1-B caps ensures that most entrepreneurship, and future engineering jobs, will occur outside of the US.

10/26/2009 2:21 AM EDT

would that be an advantage for the US or a disadvantage?

UK Bad Credit Debt Consolidation

10/27/2009 8:28 PM EDT

My advice to any student looking to get into engineering is to think of the profession not only as a lab rat building cool stuff, but also from an economics standpoint. One of the major advantages US engineers have is that we have been a Capitalist economy for quite some time now, and therefore we are brought up Capitalist ideals (let's hope this current administration doesn't abolish that). That said, if you design from a Capitalist's viewpoint, you will be worth the extra buck and management will recognize that. Foreign engineers are just lab rats... some are really good, but they don't understand the big picture. Capitalism is what always puts Americans on top.