'Our entire team changed.' Indian techie narrates how they are being replaced with Vietnam developers

Ever since the IT boom in the 1990s, India has seen massive growth in the Information Technology sector, which also gave rise to some of India's top skilled employment providers. Riding on the wave of outsourcing by top US tech companies, the Indian tech industry - led by Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services among others - grew by leaps and bounds in the past few decades.

What worked for India

Indian tech companies were able to provide highly skilled, English-speaking engineers to US companies at a fraction of the cost they would incur hiring someone locally, making it a win-win for both sides. Tech graduates from the country's premier institutes including Indian Institute of Technology (IITs), Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences,Pilani, Manipal Institute of Technology became brand ambassadors of the country's tech think-tank as they aced top jobs in tech corporations globally.

Tech is one of the largest employment generators in India and employs around 5.4 million people.

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How tables are turning

Now the tables are turning, and other countries in Southeast Asia are offering the same services at even cheaper prices, undercutting India.

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This has resulted in many American companies shifting at least part of their outsourcing to countries like the Philippines and Vietnam, affecting many jobs in India.

'We are being replaced'

An Indian techie recently posted on Reddit about how his team has been replaced by Vietnamese developers. Taking to the social networking forum, the techie who goes by the handle, "tht_rajasthani_guy" lamented that after having worked for a client for a year-and-a-half, he and his team were now being shown the door.

"Oh man! Our entire team has been replaced by Vietnamese developers," the Redditor, who goes by the name @tht_rajasthani_guy, wrote.

"We have been working for this client for almost 1.5 years, and everything was going well. Two months ago, they replaced the Director of Engineering from India with a Vietnamese Director of Engineering, and things started to change, replacing each Indian developer and even the US-based developers on the client side. Our entire development team has been replaced," he further wrote in his post which has received more than 2.7k upvoted and over 500 comments.

Oh man ! Our entire team has been replaced by Vietnam developers.
byu/tht_rajasthani_guy indevelopersIndia

According to him, compared to Indians, the Vietnamese developers cost much less. Also, the latter, he wrote, are willing to work almost 12 hours a day. He, however, pointed out that the Vietnamese developers faced a challenge when it came to articulating in English. In Vietnam, the main language spoken is Vietnamese, also known as ti?ng Vi?t (tyang vyet).

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'We are not the cheapest anymore'

"So we are not the cheapest anymore," said one person, in reaction to the Redditor's post.

"We replaced the American mid-skilled IT, now we're getting replaced. Life's a cycle," another wrote.

For long, Indian software professionals have been said to fulfil the criteria desired by tech companies: tech prowess, knowledge of English, adaptable (to new cultures) and made for economically viable workforce due to their not-so-high pay grades.

Yet another respondent was optimistic and said, "Unless the work being delivered is up to the mark, sooner or later the contract/work will shift back to onshore devs, then it will be offshored again citing cost-cutting issues."

Not just IT!

Another person, not very happy with the way the world economy was shaping up, said that this issue was all-pervasive, and went beyond the IT sector. "My brother who works in marine engineering says a lot of people are coming from Vietnam now because they work for cheap. It is only a matter of time before we all get replaced," he wrote.

Do you see Indian techies being replaced by those in Vietnam and the Philippines by 2030? Let us know in the Comments section

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