The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

Reverse offshoring?

I've been contacted by this outfit twice for contracting jobs:
http://www.gssiinc.com/index.html

They're offering mediocre pay, but I really wonder if this is a front for an Indian outfit, maybe for clients that demand a warm body on premises? Note that there is NO geographic location (that I could find in a two-minute skim) on their website. The domain is registered in Texas, but uses a yahoo email address.

Just a funky stench, no matter what it is...

Philo

Philo
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Take a look at http://www.gssiinc.com/plan.html and http://www.gssiinc.com/global.html

I think they will (sort of) answer your question.

Exception guy
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Ummm, yeah, and my five year plan is to be rich enough to retire. Ain't gonna happen in this ecomomy.

Their pages are full of what they are going to do, but not who they are or where they are or specifics on what they're doing. Opening an "office" in some cities could mean nothing more than a mail box.

They're simply hiding too much. My radar detects a fly-by-night operation.

old_timer
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

I tried to contact them via the Contact Us web form, but the site fails with an error Server object error 'ASP 0177 : 800401f3'... Hmm

Evgeny Gesin /Javadesk/
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

GSSI is a fairly well-known company in India. They are based out of Pune (not a hi-tech city but very picturesque and nice weather).

They are publicly traded and was well-respected for their product (something to enable collaboration around CAD / CAM based designs)

I think they got bought over by a US company sometime back and since then not doing too well. (we poached and hired many of their best guys. really sharp C++ people)

If you want I can find out internal stuff about them from my colleagues who worked there and are still in touch with some employees there.

Tarun Upadhyay
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Not really necessary. I'm just fascinated by what I'm seeing. I've seen what appears to be a lot of Indian companies recruiting in the US.
If there's this vast sea of untapped IT resources in Bangalore, why are they doing this?

IMHO, it's simple economics - the recession myth and the false promise of offshoring savings have artificially suppressed salaries to the point where companies are paying MORE for offshore contracts than they could get at home, and the offshore companies can afford to hire passthrough workers in the US (giving them onsite presence and saving them training costs).

Just like the artificial inflation of salaries during the dotcom, this is a bubble that will burst.

Philo

Philo
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Their web site is awesome, in the worst sense of the word. The home page consists of buzzword laden bafflegab even beyond what is typical for a corporate web page. If a job seeker resume were written like that it would get pitched in the circular file in about five seconds.

Looking over the other pages reveals some apparent contradictions in certain phrases, such as:

"Five Year Expansion Plan" and elsewhere: "We do contraction"

mackinac
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Philo, the Indian companies ARE recruiting in the USA.

Why?

Because US businesses prefer to sign a contract with another US business, than to sign a contract with an offslore business.

It's a responsability thing: if the contractor is in the US, you can sue them more easily in case they break their contract.

So, this is why Indian companies are setting up offices in the US.

Also: Indian companies need people in the US in order to gather requirements from their customers.

Requirements gathering is very hard to do remotely.

Prad
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Philo: describe what you mean by the 'recession myth'.

Firebug
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

They can't even spell their own name correctly in the main logo!!! Bozos!

sgf
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

>They can't even spell their own name correctly in the main >logo!!! Bozos!

Lol, that's the funniest thing (in a sad clown kind of way) that I've seen in a while...

Christo Fogelberg
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Recession myth - that companies, while trying to hire someone and unable to find qualified people, will tell the people they *do* find that they can't pay as much "because of the recession"

You don't get to say "we'll pay less because of the recession" when you have one candidate for two open jobs. You get to say it when you have twenty fully qualified people for two jobs.

The *problem* is that these companies hire people willing to settle for low pay, but they get what they pay for, without realizing the problem. So qualified people who could actually do the job never get called "because they're asking for too much"

An afterthought - I'm in DC, which shows more open jobs on every site I check than it did before the bubble burst.

Philo

Philo
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Philo,

There really is a recession in the SF Bay Area. Not that there are no jobs, but things are much slower than usual. You can pin on any number of reasons, Web bubble bursting, Post Y2k slowdown, sending jobs overseas, big companies downsizing, whatever. All I know is that things look pretty bleak for my wife who does PR and used to have several telecom clients.

pdq
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Philo, I would say your wariness is well placed. The offshorers need a tiny proportion of locals who can converse with clients correctly.

From what I've seen, these are stressful roles, because the poor guy is expected to not only do his normal development job, but also take up the slack from communications and quality problems from the offshore team.

Also, I understand the management structures are such that you're left in no doubt that your role is a subordinate one.

JM
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

>>> An afterthought - I'm in DC, which shows more open jobs on every site I check than it did before the bubble burst. <<<

Have you been keeping records? The Sunday Washington Post has about 2 pages of "Tech Jobs". Before the bubble burst there was a separate section of Tech Jobs.

Last Sunday is up over 3 pages, but one entire page is for a Raytheon ad. Most of their jobs are in California and almost all require an active security clearance. That is, they are jobs for people who already have jobs.

mackinac
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

The newspaper? How quaint.

The job listing at washingtonpost.com lists over 500 jobs including the term "visual basic"

My barometer has been the jobs listing at computerjobs.com. I remember watching the DC/Metro area jobs creep up to 1,000 and barely get to 1200 before the crash.

Today there's 1,461 jobs listed in DC/Metro.

Not a scientific study, to be sure, but certainly an indicator.

Philo

Philo
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Maybe it's different where you live...

Over here newspapers have advertisments for actual jobs, where real companies are doing that quaint thing known as "hiring" workers who will be "employed" and paid money to do "work".

Many internet sites contain ads from recruitment agencies trolling for CVs/resumes so they they can boost the size of their database when they need to talk to their paying customers. If you check multiple sites there's a slight possibility that you'll find duplicated ads, as well. Some of the jobs on offer aren't, strictly speaking, going to help you get an actual paying job. It seems many companies doubt the actual value of said recruitment agencies when it comes to hiring competent workers, and thus relying on them to find an employer could also be considered suspect.

Me? Cynical? What makes you say that?

andrew m
Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Their website with it's slick generic look coupled with misspellings and meaningless keywords looks for all the world like the website of my old roommate, Sean Vespuccia. (name changed to protect the guilty)

Sean doesn't know how to program, but he's mastered photoshop and dreamweaver and puts together dozens of these phoney corporate sites to make him look good and attract 'clients', all of whom he bilks out of money while delivering incomprehensible code that won't compile that he has cut and pasted from SourceForge.

He makes twice what I do, by the way, lives in a giant mansion on the hill, owns three Steinway concert grands, and has a collection of beautiful antique cars.

It's a pity his scam works while competant and worthy developers I know can't find work just because they don't know the arts of flash and schmoozing.

Dennis Atkins
Thursday, October 23, 2003

Imagine how much money Sean could make if he actually hired two developers...

Philo

Philo
Thursday, October 23, 2003

"I've seen what appears to be a lot of Indian companies recruiting in the US.
If there's this vast sea of untapped IT resources in Bangalore, why are they doing this?"

Well for a start you probably speak much better English than they do, even though you are American :-) A similar thing is happening in Germany, because German companies don't seem to want to deal with Indians.

Thursday, October 23, 2003

In this particular case, www.gssiinc.com is reportedly a site created by a disgruntled ex-employee of the actual company in India - Geometric Software Solutions Co. Ltd.(www.geometricsoftware.com).

Just for the record.

Inside Information
Monday, October 27, 2003