Indian Immigrants Return Home Where Software Jobs Await Them
A year ago, Gaurav Maheshwari was living the dream of a generation of Indian engineers. The 30-year-old software programmer was earning more than $100,000 a year at a Silicon Valley start-up, living in a luxury San Jose, Calif., apartment complex with a swimming pool, and driving a Nissan Maxima with a souped-up sound system.
Then, Mr. Maheshwari learned that his employer, Lumenare Networks Inc., was moving all of its programming jobs to India to reduce costs. Uncertain of his U.S. prospects amid the tech slump, and with strong family ties tugging him home, Mr. Maheshwari volunteered to go.
Now, he manages 11 of Lumenare's 30 software engineers near Delhi, for the equivalent of $21,000 a year, about one-fifth his old salary. He lives with his wife, their newborn daughter and his parents in an apartment in a middle-class suburb. Though he misses his car and the convenient pool, he likes being closer to family and having a part-time maid.
As companies like Lumenare increasingly move software and other service-sector jobs to India, Mr. Maheshwari effectively wound up competing against himself in the global labor market. Tens of thousands of U.S. programmers are unemployed, and pay is declining for those still working.
In returning to India, Mr. Maheshwari may be in the vanguard of a growing reverse migration. Over the past decade, hundreds of thousands of Indian engineers moved to the U.S. for jobs, adventure and Silicon Valley wealth. Now, the U.S. job market is lousy and the government is tightening the rules on immigrants.
During the boom, "you could bring just about anyone and put them to work here for $100 an hour," says Jay Singh, West Coast practice leader for Hudson Highland Group, a recruitment and executive search firm. In the past two years, however, Mr. Singh estimates that 250 of the 650 Indian-born engineers that he helped bring to the U.S. since 1997 have returned home.
There, engineers find ample jobs, thanks largely to Western companies trying to cut costs. Salaries are much lower, but so is the cost of living. And there are other amenities: The availability of cheap domestic help means "you don't have to clean your dishes or your bathroom," says Murali Krishna Devarakonda, an India-born engineer who is president of an immigrant-rights group in Silicon Valley.
India's growing allure was on display at an unusual job fair last month in Santa Clara, Calif. There, high-tech giants such as Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc. attempted to entice ethnic Indian engineers to join their expanding operations in India.
Intel Chief Executive Craig Barrett says Intel isn't moving jobs, but that much of the company's growth in employment will be in Asia, which is where Intel's revenue is growing fastest. At the job fair, Intel aimed to recruit people who might be thinking of returning home to do so with Intel.
Mr. Maheshwari came to the U.S. in 1999. He had a master's degree in computer science and had worked two years for an India-based unit of Hughes Electronics Corp. Mr. Maheshwari thrived in Silicon Valley, working 18 months at Cisco, and a shorter stint at Hewlett-Packard Co., among others. As the economy soured in 2001, he bounced through several jobs, landing at Lumenare in July 2002 to write software for testing telecom equipment.
Lumenare was founded in 1998, during the telecom boom. By 2001, however, boom had turned to bust, and the company started to look at using cheaper programmers in India to stretch its then-remaining $10 million in venture-capital funding.
Yogi Mistry, a veteran of four prior "offshoring" projects and Lumenare's vice president of development, began hiring rapidly in India. Supervisors make as much as $42,000 a year, but most of the software engineers earn less than $10,000. There are a few perks: a company-catered lunch for the equivalent of 50 cents a day, and a 45-minute yoga session every afternoon, for which the company picks up half the cost. By early this year, Lumenare had shifted all of its programming to India (the only U.S. employees who went to India are Mr. Maheshwari and another programmer). Chief Executive Phil Cavallo says that without the cost savings "I don't think I'd be in business."
Mr. Maheshwari moved to India in March. The Maheshwaris' first apartment was near a construction project, suffered from power failures and had "slightly salty" drinking water. So the couple moved in June to a three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment in a gated complex with back-up power. The $178-a-month unit building has a washing machine, covered parking and three balconies.
Mr. Maheshwari now drives a smaller Maruti Zen sedan with "just a simple cassette player." But he's also been struck by how much more modern India appears. When he left, ATM machines were a rarity. Now, they're on every corner, along with improved roads, fancier shopping centers and more diverse restaurants. Mr. Maheshwari figures his standard of living is comparable to what he had in Silicon Valley. In the long run, he figures he won't save as much or own as nice a house, but he's happy to be closer to family and friends.
印度移民重返故土 软件工作虚位以待
一年前，Gaurav Maheshwari就已经过上了他们这一代印度工程师所梦想的生活。这位30岁的软件程序员受雇于美国硅谷的一家刚刚起步的公司，他的年薪超过10万美元，他住在加州圣荷塞的一处带有游泳池的豪华公寓中，开著一辆日产(Nissan)的Maxima轿车，车上的音响系统也十分高档。
后来，Maheshwari先生得知，他的雇主Lumenare Networks为了节约成本要将所有的软件开发工作转移到印度去做。美国科技产业正处于下滑阶段，未来情景尚未明朗，怀著对故乡浓浓的思念，Maheshwari自愿申请回到印度。
如今，Lumenare在新德里附近设立的办公地点一共有30名软件工程师，其中的11人都在Maheshwari手下工作。他的年薪现在只有21,000美元，大约是他在美国工作时所挣薪水的五分之一。他和妻子、刚出生的女儿、还有父母住在一个中产阶级聚集的市郊。虽然他也怀念在美国生活时拥有的自家泳池和豪华的轿车，但他更喜欢和家人呆在一起，还可以雇佣兼职佣人处理家务。
随著像Lumenare这样的美国公司将越来越多的软件及其他服务领域的工作转移到印度，Maheshwari的这种做法实际上成功的化解了自己在国际劳动力市场中所面临的竞争压力。数以万计的美国程序员失业，在职程序员的薪水也在下降。
可以说，Maheshwari回到印度使他走在了印度移民回流的最前面。在过去十年中，数十万印度工程师到美国找工作，去经历外面的世界，挖掘硅谷的财富。而如今，美国就业市场疲软，美国政府也收紧了与移民有关的种种规定。
在经济繁荣的时候，“你可以让任何人到美国来工作，1小时挣100美元”，猎头公司Hudson Highland Group的Jay Singh说。但Singh估计，在经由他来到美国工作的650名印度工程师中，最近两年可能已经有250人回到印度去了。
印度急需大量软件工程师，这很大程度是源于西方公司为降低成本将很多工作转移到那里。虽然工资比美国低很多，但印度的生活消费水平也是很低的。而且，在印度生活还有其他好处，比如廉价的生活服务，“你不必自己去刷盘子或是清洗浴室”，印度软件工程师Murali Krishna说。他是硅谷一家移民权利组织的总裁。
印度愈来愈强大的吸引力在上个月加州圣克拉拉举行的一次不同寻常的招聘会上得到充分展示。当时，英特尔(Intel Corp.)、微软(Microsoft Corp.)、甲骨文(Oracle Corp.)和德州仪器(Texas Instruments Inc.)等众多高科技产业巨头都努力吸引印度工程师加入到他们在印度开拓业务的事业中去。
英特尔首席执行长贝瑞特(Craig Barrett)说，英特尔并不是在转移现有的职位，公司新雇员的增长主要来源于在亚洲的人才招聘。亚洲是英特尔业务增长最迅速的地区。在上述招聘会上，英特尔希望招聘到愿意回到印度、和英特尔一起在印度发展的印度工程师。
Maheshwari是1999年来到美国的。他是计算机科学专业的硕士研究生，曾经在休斯电子公司(Hughes Electronics Corp.)的印度子公司工作过两年。后来，他在硅谷大展宏图，在思科系统(Cisco)干了18个月，在惠普(Hewlett-Packard Co.)等其他公司也工作过一段时间。当美国经济处于2001年繁荣期时，他多次跳槽，直到2002年7月落定在Lumenare，负责编写测试电信设备的软件程序。
Lumenare创建于1998年，当时电信业正欣欣向荣。但是到了2001年，繁荣的泡沫开始破裂，Lumenare为了节约成本，开始在印度雇佣程序员进行工作，希望这样做可以使仅剩的1,000万美元风险资本多支撑一段时间。
Lumenare的发展部副总裁Yogi Mistry开始在印度大量招聘雇员。此人曾经四次参与过项目转移的过程。在印度招聘到管理人士一年的薪水大约是42,000美元，但大多数软件开发人员的年薪不超过1万美元。公司还提供其他福利：免费的午餐，每顿价值大约50美分；每天下午有一段45分钟的瑜伽锻炼；公司承担一半的费用。今年年初，Lumenare就已经完成将全部软件开发业务转移到印度（从美国派去的雇员只有Maheshwari和另外一个程序员）的工作。公司首席执行长Phil Cavallo说，如果不大力节约成本，“公司可能早就破产了”。
Maheshwari今年3月份回到印度。他一开始居住的公寓附近有个建筑工地，经常断电，而且饮用水也不卫生。6月份，他们全家搬进一个带有三个卫生间的三居室，还有三个阳台、带顶棚的停车位；房间内还配有洗衣机。每个月的租金是178美元。
Maheshwari现在开一辆体型较小的Maruti Zen轿车，只有简单的盒带播放器。但不管怎样，印度现代化的发展还是让Maheshwari赞叹不已。当年他离开印度的时候，自动提款机(ATM)还是很少见的，可现在满大街都是。而且，道路交通也大有改善，购物中心林立，世界各地的餐馆都可以看到。Maheshwari觉得他的生活水平和在硅谷时差不多。从长远看来，虽然他攒的钱不能像在美国时那样多，也不能住和在美国一样的豪华公寓，但能够和家人、朋友生活在一起让他感到很开心。
