https://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/chevron-to-set-up-engineering-innovation-center-with-1bn-investment-124082000974_1.html

It looks like McKinzie got to a Chevron.

" The company plans to hire and recruit from all the disciplines of engineering mechanical, chemical, computer science and electrical. It will also be recruiting specialists in geology, geophysics and environmental science."

All those $200K+ jobs in the U.S. will soon be replaced by somebody making $30K. In the meantime they'll be having late night or early morning calls because of the 10.5 hour time difference trying to work with teams eventually taking their job.

Outsourcing tax for every American job lost to a foreign nation.

Not to mention a 1-week decision will turn into a 10-week decision due to all the back and forth over email and late night calls re-explaining the obvious dozens of times.

We I've seen the recent videos of Indian engineering fails. Don't do it Gulf.

Idiotic decision by a once great company

A company can't pass up and opportunity for cutting costs. Deserves a shareholder lawsuit if they don't.

I wonder what can be done about this given the advent of remote technology. Any job that can be done in a low cost of living region has to be moved there?
One thing is US engineers need to upskill so that their work can't be done elsewhere, as well as US salaries need to come down to be globally competitive.

Outsourcing to India

soggybottomboy said:

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US salaries need to come down to be globally competitive.

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Huh?

soggybottomboy said:

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US salaries need to come down to be globally competitive.

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Falling for the globalist agenda. We hollowed out our industry with NAFTA and are now arbitraging away America's salaried (middle) class

Dan Scott said:

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https://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/chevron-to-set-up-engineering-innovation-center-with-1bn-investment-124082000974_1.html

It looks like McKinzie got to a Chevron.

" The company plans to hire and recruit from all the disciplines of engineering mechanical, chemical, computer science and electrical. It will also be recruiting specialists in geology, geophysics and environmental science."

All those $200K+ jobs in the U.S. will soon be replaced by somebody making $30K. In the meantime they'll be having late night or early morning calls because of the 10.5 hour time difference trying to work with teams eventually taking their job.

Outsourcing tax for every American job lost to a foreign nation.

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This is as bad as California taxing individuals for leaving the state.

India has a lot of engineers, a small percentage are exceptional.
The majority are mediocre to bad, they just learn differently - order takers, and no initiative.
If Chevron pays top dollar, for the really exceptional engineers, they will do well.

If they are doing this to to cut costs, it's going to be a long and expensive process for them to find out that your average American engineer is far superior to getting 4 cheap Indian engineers.

soggybottomboy said:

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A company can't pass up and opportunity for cutting costs. Deserves a shareholder lawsuit if they don't.

I wonder what can be done about this given the advent of remote technology. Any job that can be done in a low cost of living region has to be moved there?
One thing is US engineers need to upskill so that their work can't be done elsewhere, as well as US salaries need to come down to be globally competitive.

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Nothing here seems to suggest they are cutting costs.
This isn't a back office operation.

Looks like they are starting from scratch, which is the correct way to do it in India (albeit slower). Acquisition would have been faster, but also worthless imo..because you can't be super selective with who you hire. Hiring is the key in India.

I thought CVX was my dream job 15 years ago. They laid me off without even getting my name right. Good riddance to a once great company.

Good luck.

Some directors and VPs are going to get some nice pay raises and bonuses out of this.

Looks like some Christmas displays in West Universoty and River Oaks are going to get a little snazzier this year.

soggybottomboy said:

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A company can't pass up and opportunity for cutting costs. Deserves a shareholder lawsuit if they don't.

I wonder what can be done about this given the advent of remote technology. Any job that can be done in a low cost of living region has to be moved there?
One thing is US engineers need to upskill so that their work can't be done elsewhere, as well as US salaries need to come down to be globally competitive.

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Stem degrees in India aren't any where near equivalent to stem degrees from Abet universities in the states

You want to outsource data entry or it, fine.... but you don't outsource engineering


Idiotic decision at best


ETA the shareholder lawsuit should be aimed the terrible decision to outsource stem.... this will undoubtedly negatively affect chevron

Great username! You must be a man of constant sorrow!

Dan Scott said:

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All those $200K+ jobs in the U.S. will soon be replaced by somebody making $30K. In the meantime they'll be having late night or early morning calls because of the 10.5 hour time difference trying to work with teams eventually taking their job.

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I've been to Bangalore about 10 times for work between 2011 and 2020 (one of my last trips before the world ended in March 2020).

Since 2021, I've hired a team of 8-10 people in India, between Bangalore and Pune.

Salaries have increased considerably but the value of the Rupee has dropped significantly.
Back in 2011, it was about 60 Rs per USD, now it's over 80 Rs per USD.

15 years ago, you could hire an "Engineer" in India for $40,000. Today, that's more like $60,000.

If you bring them over to the USA, you're going to have to pay them something between $100k - $150k depending on experience and location.

And trust me, every last one of them wants to come to the USA. Most of them want to retire back to India but they want to spend their prime earning years here in the land of Freedom.

Just this week, I had a guy give my name to our HR recruiter to use as a reference. It was a guy I tried to hire in India two years ago but he turned down my job offer because his existing employer promised him an H-1B Visa to the USA. Now he's trying to change jobs and wants us to take over his sponsorship. It's not in my department so I don't hold any sway over whether he gets hired or not but in the past, I did want to hire him. For the record, it's about $15,000 in immigration legal fees and such to assume somebody's H-1B Visa sponsorship.

The vast majority of these young Indian guys are just chasing a bag. And as soon as somebody else offers a bigger bag, they're gone. By the way, I've worked with some very competent Indian women but they're never going to get the credit they deserve due to cultural issues (women in the USA complaining about discrimination and equality have no idea how good they have it).

Productivity wise, there's no place that matches the USA in productivity. And obviously no place other than maybe Australia or Canada that comes close to matching US customer service standards. Note: I'm not counting Airlines or Hotels because the Asians have that on lock - Emirates, Etihad, Singapore, Cathay, Korean, etc.

Back in 2004 when I first moved to LA, I befriended an older Sikh guy who lived in my apartment ("pause" - or as we used to say in LA in 2004, "no homo"). He used to sit out by the pool drinking whisky and told me about the 4 men living in one room who were on their mobile phones all night calling home while they were on a 179 day assignment working in the IT shop at Warner Brothers (179 days of temporary work allowed WB to pay them in Rupees rather than USD).

What that old Sikh guy told me still rings true today.

He told me that the Indians can program better than you and you should never try to beat them. But, he said, the problem they have is that due to their education system and culture, they will never be able to figure out what the problem is. So as an American, you can use Indians to program but you have to provide the problem definition and guidelines because they can't do it.

I've got plenty of other observations but that's good enough for this conversation.

My guess is that Chevron will abandon this initiative after 10 years or so. Unless it's really just an investment to try to raise their profile with the Indian government, or pay lip service to alternative fuels. After all, there are about 1.4 Billion people in India so that could be an attractive market.

Also, with respect to facilities, the multi-national corporate offices in BLR are much nicer than their counterparts in the USA / Australia / Europe. And we had 10 Gb Internet back in 2011. I was blown away at how fast I could download files from our data center in Santa Clara.

From the article:

Quote:

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Global energy solutions provider Chevron is investing $1 billion in a new research and development (R&D) hub called Chevron Engineering and Innovation Excellence Center (ENGINE) in Bengaluru. This marks the company's first engineering and innovation center in India of scale.

Chevron ENGINE, to be located near Bellandur, will be hiring talent with specialised skills encompassing both engineering and digital services, with approximately 600 positions to be filled by 2025-end, and plans to add more positions over time.

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soggybottomboy said:

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A company can't pass up and opportunity for cutting costs. Deserves a shareholder lawsuit if they don't.

I wonder what can be done about this given the advent of remote technology. Any job that can be done in a low cost of living region has to be moved there?
One thing is US engineers need to upskill so that their work can't be done elsewhere, as well as US salaries need to come down to be globally competitive.

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In theroy I agree but practically given the world we live in uh no. And its tough to do considering we are educating competition in our universities and good luck with that unique up scaling in a nation of 330 million. That might work for Israel or Norway. Will not work for the US.

And how are you going to cut salaries when people own homes and cars that cost much more than what they cost in Spain, India, or China. Yeah lets cut everyone salary by 50% with that cost structure. That will work.

Right now the US is investing 3x on AI than the next biggest competitor, China. We always do this, discover a new tech, invest like crazy in it. Tool up and go on line only to shut it down and move it off shore 5 years later.

This could be big trouble. For example, If trouble came with China there are lots of common electronic parts such as micro-controllers that would no longer be available. Try fighting a modern war without that simple basic stuff.

Quote:

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One thing is US engineers need to upskill so that their work can't be done elsewhere

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Tell me you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground without telling me.

US engineers run circles around Indians when the **** hits the fan.

Quote:

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as well as US salaries need to come down to be globally competitive.

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Tell me you don't understand economics and capital value without telling me. That is just a dumbass statement. Period. You obviously have zero clue as to the value Western engineers bring to companies.


I don't even care if you're an engineer, or in the business, if you are and believe those two things then you are destined to a life of low level discipline engineer just collecting a paycheck and doing just enough to not get fired.

soggybottomboy said:

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US salaries need to come down to be globally competitive.

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Or, now hear me out, we stop wasting so much of our tax money on stupid programs and and not allow all of our wages to be less valuable by rampant inflation.

I'd like to know where this strategy has worked in the past. For as often as companies do this, surely there are examples of organizations which sent all their IT overseas and saw improved service at a lower price. My company seems to do this every couple of years. We get a new CIO, and they will send everyone overseas, it fails, CIO gets fired, we hire people back. CIO leaves, new CIO comes in, decides to move IT overseas, it fails, CIO gets fired, etc. We are currently in the hire back phase, but we are also having to deal with, "Why can't AI just do this?"

IF they hire good leadership in India, have good product and architectural direction from the US, give the team in India a self-contained problem they can own, and create a great culture - then they can be successful long-term. It's worked well for my current company.

I realize that's a lot of ifs.

Quote:

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give the team in India a self-contained problem they can own,

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THIS is the problem.

Real life, business issues are not self contained.

You give India anything that is not black/white, they lock up like a 100 MHz on an infinite do loop.

Will be the most confident engineering center ever assembled.

HollywoodBQ said:

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What that old Sikh guy told me still rings true today.

He told me that the Indians can program better than you and you should never try to beat them. But, he said, the problem they have is that due to their education system and culture, they will never be able to figure out what the problem is. So as an American, you can use Indians to program but you have to provide the problem definition and guidelines because they can't do it.

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Your friend has a wrong assumption that programming and problem solving are two different things. If you can't figure out how to solve a problem, then you can't program. You can just type.

AustinAg2K said:

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HollywoodBQ said:

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What that old Sikh guy told me still rings true today.

He told me that the Indians can program better than you and you should never try to beat them. But, he said, the problem they have is that due to their education system and culture, they will never be able to figure out what the problem is. So as an American, you can use Indians to program but you have to provide the problem definition and guidelines because they can't do it.

---

Your friend has a wrong assumption that programming and problem solving are two different things. If you can't figure out how to solve a problem, then you can't program. You can just type.

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Guy in charge of manufacturing close tolerance oil tools in Russia told me of a similar thing. They can do it perfect once but after that 20% will fail quality control. And you'll lose money. Said it's cultural in nature.

soggybottomboy said:

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US salaries need to come down to be globally competitive.

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US salaries are competitive. It's far cheaper to just hire a quality engineer. Look at it this way. You could hire a team of US engineers, and get stuff done, or you can hire a team of offshore developers that don't really do anything except ask the US employees what to do.

This is an investment in India Gas and oil production future. Gotta have smart folks and there are plenty of them in India. You have politicians that are actively working to snuff out Chevron future in the US.

So you are doing no favor when one's final analysis is outsourcing. It is not.

Without quoting different posts here, I concur on much said about how folks in India tick after many years of working with them or being their boss. I call it good at following recipes. They learn how to use all the kitchen tools in prescribed manners well (software dev, etc) and are pretty good at following crystal clear recipes (detailed requirements and/or problem solutions). As soon as anything changes or isn't as expected, then all work on said thing grinds to a halt until someone in the US solves the problem and tells them what do do next. There have been exceptions (including good early returns on a recent hire), but that's been my experience the vast majority of the time.

I do want to say, Indians or people of Indian descent that come through all post hs school education and then work for a company here for a while can be a lot different in my experience.

Finally, Hollywood BQ, regarding your comment on sharp Indian women and cultural issues holding them back. I've worked with some Indian women that were plenty smart and often they would work harder than the men. In my experience they overcompensate for their cultural situation by doing more than they should (taking things too far), being much more verbose than needed and way too excitable (I can't describe it any other way). Exceptions to this of course.

Anyway, in conclusion, continuing to out source/off shore to India is often overall a losing proposition that I'd rather not have to do (company mandates and all). That said, in a micro sense if you interview carefully and get it right, depending on the line of work (IT related in my case), you can get value out of it.

AustinAg2K said:

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HollywoodBQ said:

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What that old Sikh guy told me still rings true today.

He told me that the Indians can program better than you and you should never try to beat them. But, he said, the problem they have is that due to their education system and culture, they will never be able to figure out what the problem is. So as an American, you can use Indians to program but you have to provide the problem definition and guidelines because they can't do it.

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Your friend has a wrong assumption that programming and problem solving are two different things. If you can't figure out how to solve a problem, then you can't program. You can just type.

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No, he's right. I just finished a 6 month project working with a team of engineers in India. Yes, they can code. The product they put out worked relatively well. The big problem I had was their inability to understand the bigger picture and problems we were trying to solve. My biggest frustration was having to repeatedly explain how the system was supposed to work. Also, if I didn't specify every minute detail things would get missed. Common sense things. It was incr3dibly frustrating, expensive, and at the end of the project they missed some key features and we ran out of time/money. If given very specific instructions they can code well. They totally lack the ability to take the more general requirements and translate that to something specific. Also, it's been my experience over the past 15 to 20 years that the female engineers are much better. They communicate much much better. The male engineers have terrible communication skills for the most part.

dmart90 said:

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IF they hire good leadership in India, have good product and architectural direction from the US, give the team in India a self-contained problem they can own, and create a great culture - then they can be successful long-term. It's worked well for my current company.

I realize that's a lot of ifs.

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Given your nested IF statements, it looks like the Indians can out program us:
IF (condition=true) THEN
IF (other condition=true) THEN
IF (another condition=true) THEN
IF (yet another condition=true) THEN
maybe they'll be able to do something useful
ELSE
FAIL
ELSE
FAIL
ELSE
FAIL
ELSE
FAIL

The first hurdle will be Leadership.
Second will be retention.
(Formatting - I guess the TexAgs doesn't like spaces or tabs)

AustinAg2K said:

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HollywoodBQ said:

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What that old Sikh guy told me still rings true today.

He told me that the Indians can program better than you and you should never try to beat them. But, he said, the problem they have is that due to their education system and culture, they will never be able to figure out what the problem is. So as an American, you can use Indians to program but you have to provide the problem definition and guidelines because they can't do it.

---

Your friend has a wrong assumption that programming and problem solving are two different things. If you can't figure out how to solve a problem, then you can't program. You can just type.

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Oh Sir... You can right thousands of lines of code without solving a damn thing.

This is why it took my Indian Tableau gal 4 months to solve basic math functions related to utilisation percentages.

Exxon outsources to India too for some stuff. So damn annoying.

HollywoodBQ said:

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dmart90 said:

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IF they hire good leadership in India, have good product and architectural direction from the US, give the team in India a self-contained problem they can own, and create a great culture - then they can be successful long-term. It's worked well for my current company.

I realize that's a lot of ifs.

---

Given your nested IF statements, it looks like the Indians can out program us:
IF (condition=true) THEN
IF (other condition=true) THEN
IF (another condition=true) THEN
IF (yet another condition=true) THEN
maybe they'll be able to do something useful
ELSE
FAIL
ELSE
FAIL
ELSE
FAIL
ELSE
FAIL

The first hurdle will be Leadership.
Second will be retention.
(Formatting - I guess the TexAgs doesn't like spaces or tabs)

---

Lordy y'all are coding in BASIC



Joking !!!

JB99 said:

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AustinAg2K said:

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HollywoodBQ said:

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What that old Sikh guy told me still rings true today.

He told me that the Indians can program better than you and you should never try to beat them. But, he said, the problem they have is that due to their education system and culture, they will never be able to figure out what the problem is. So as an American, you can use Indians to program but you have to provide the problem definition and guidelines because they can't do it.

---

Your friend has a wrong assumption that programming and problem solving are two different things. If you can't figure out how to solve a problem, then you can't program. You can just type.

---

No, he's right. I just finished a 6 month project working with a team of engineers in India. Yes, they can code. The product they put out worked relatively well. The big problem I had was their inability to understand the bigger picture and problems we were trying to solve. My biggest frustration was having to repeatedly explain how the system was supposed to work. Also, if I didn't specify every minute detail things would get missed. Common sense things. It was incr3dibly frustrating, expensive, and at the end of the project they missed some key features and we ran out of time/money. If given very specific instructions they can code well. They totally lack the ability to take the more general requirements and translate that to something specific. Also, it's been my experience over the past 15 to 20 years that the female engineers are much better. They communicate much much better. The male engineers have terrible communication skills for the most part.

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You're proving the point I am making. As a software developer, writing code is about 10% of the job, and by far the easiest part. Being able to understand the bigger picture is part of the job. If you are expecting to just have people write code and that's it, you might as well hire a high school intern, or have AI write it. If you want a workable, robust solution, it's better to hire a real software developer and not a "coder."

Let's say you want to make a website to sell widgets. A bad programmer is going to take that request and go create you a website that sells widgets. A good programmer is going to first ask, "How many widgets are you planning on selling? What different types of widgets will you sell? Will you be selling them globally or just in certain areas? What sort of metrics do you want to track? Do you already have an operations team that will monitor everything? Are they using specific tools we should integrate with? Etc."

Or, to put it another way, let's say you hire a plumber to install a new sink. If you have to sit there and show him where ever pipe goes, and verify everything is up to code yourself, etc., and all he is doing is turning a wrench, is that a good plumber?

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