> The reality is that costs are being reduced by replacing US teams with offshore teams.
Hailing from an outsourcing destination I need to ask: to where specifically? We've been laid off all the same. Me and my team spent the second half of 2025 working half time because that's the proposition we were given.
What is this fabled place with an apparent abundance of highly skilled developers? India? They don't make on average much less than we do here - the good ones make more.
My belief is that spending on staff just went down across the board because every company noticed that all the others were doing layoffs, so pressure to compete in the software space is lower. Also all the investor money was spent on datacentres so in a way AI is taking jobs.
At a very large company at the momen: One of the things I've noticed is as translation has improved, C level preferences and political considerations have made a much bigger impact.
So we will reduce headcount in some countries because of things like (perceived) working culture, and increase based on the need to gain goodwill or fulfil contracts from customers.
This can also mean that the type of work outsources can change pretty quickly. We are getting rid of most of the "developers" in India, because places like Vietnam and eastern Europe are now less limited by language, and are much better to work with. At the same time we are inventing and outsourcing other activities to India because of a desire to sell in their market.
One of my consulting customers has been half India, half not for a decade. There is a real push over the last year to wind down the not India half and shift to mostly India.
India based folks cost 50-75% less. I realize that quality India hires would be closer to US rates, but management is ignoring that aspect.
If they're lucky they'll find one solid worker who's going to watch everyone else's hands. I've had one criminally underpaid unofficial[0] tech lead like that. He was herding a team of 11, where like four people at most really cared about the outcome of this project.
[0] Because otherwise a raise would be in order. Can't have that.
Hailing from an outsourcing destination I need to ask: to where specifically? We've been laid off all the same. Me and my team spent the second half of 2025 working half time because that's the proposition we were given.
What is this fabled place with an apparent abundance of highly skilled developers? India? They don't make on average much less than we do here - the good ones make more.
My belief is that spending on staff just went down across the board because every company noticed that all the others were doing layoffs, so pressure to compete in the software space is lower. Also all the investor money was spent on datacentres so in a way AI is taking jobs.