foreignprogrammer Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Hello, everyone. My family moved from Europe a few years ago, and I will soon be graduating from college with a programming degree. Having not held an actual programming job in this country, I am wondering what the attitudes toward foreign programmers are in the American workplace. This is a pretty open question. I would love to hear about your experiences working with foreign programmers or your experiences as a foreign programmer in the U.S. or maybe even somewhere else. Some questions that come to my mind which may serve as examples are: Am I going to have a much harder time finding a programming job in the U.S. than native Americans? Are foreign programmers generally frowned upon by colleagues? How do less-than-perfect communication skills impact a career? Will I have to deal with disrespect on a regular basis? Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
waynew Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Firstly, I'm not from the U.S, but you seem to be a little insecure about the fact that you're not a native. Stop thinking about that and focus more on improving your communication skills and showing them how good you are at programming. Generally, companies try to hire the best as the best will make them the most money. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-951426 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Being discriminated on for any reason would surely vary for different areas in the US, it's really too large to consider it as a whole. The US is pretty diverse and in general you really don't have much to worry about in that department. However, communication skills are another thing. Although depending on the specific job, good communication skills are usually an essential. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-951483 Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Americans don't care if you are not an American (or 'native' american). We're actually pretty big on equality, regardless of race, religion, nationality, blahblah. I suspect mostly because we are sue-happy, but whatever.  2 biggest caveats are:  1) "Less than perfect" communication skills. Strong communication skills are always a necessity, no matter what profession you are in, but it becomes even more essential when you are doing "distance" jobs. Body language is a significant part of communication. With that out of the picture, it becomes a lot more important to be able to convey meaning solely through words (and understand, as well). If people have a hard time understanding you and visa versa, then yes, you are going to have a hard time getting work or working efficiently.  2) Working for a fraction of the price as everybody else. We don't hate you because you're <insert some nationality here>, we hate you because you're undercutting us! If you are living in America you will quickly realize that you will not be able to live off that extremely low rate. It simply costs a lot more to live here. Working for like $2.15/hr won't cut it. Hell, even working for the U.S. federal minimum wage won't cut it around here. But it's nothing personal. We don't think foreigners are *evil* for doing that. But that don't make it any better on our end.  On that note, you will actually find it harder (relatively speaking) to get this kind of work in America, because you are in America. You will have to become more of a salesman to sell yourself, instead of relying on being able to charge less. You will have to focus on building a reputation, word-of-mouth, etc.. In other words, you will have to excel at that first point: communication.  Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-951501 Share on other sites More sharing options...
PugJr Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 CV, people can easily live under U.S. federal minimum wage. Sure it might be a difficult lifestyle (Relative to how most U.S citizens live, not compared to a 3rd world lifestyle), but it would still "cut" it. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-951506 Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 uh, no they can't. Maybe if you apply for all kinds of govt. assistance or have like 100 roommates. I've spent most my life in that bracket, I know. There's a reason why govt. turns around and gives out handouts. Because min. wage is not enough. And no I'm not talkin' about not getting to dine out and shit. I'm talking about eating beans and rice, ramen shit 24/7. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-951510 Share on other sites More sharing options...
keldorn Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 All Americans are Foreigners, in fact if you get flak by white Americans, then their idiots, becuase their actually descendants of European immigrants. lol Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-951524 Share on other sites More sharing options...
PugJr Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Minimum wage is 7.25$ an hour at this moment. Lets say you have a 12 hour work day, so thats 87$ a day * 30, $2610 a month. Thats a 15% tax, so...Now 2218$ with the odd cents off. I'm not exactly sure how you think you couldn't live off of 2218$ a month but okay...I'll give the overview of prices: (Based on monthly) Â 600$ - for an apartment. 150$ (5$ a day is easily enough to eat) - For food. 50$ - Water and electricity. 50$ - Internet. (50$ is fast internet too, but since you are CV, you need that internet.) 50$ - Toiletry and other such items. 15$ - Bike insurance (Now I don't actually have a clue how much that would cost.) Dunno - Medical Insurance (I really don't have a clue on how much that goes) Â Am I missing anything? Oh wait! Â 5$ - PHPFreaks subscription. Â Just from adding those numbers, its far less than 2218$ a month. Although I wouldn't like to live the lifestyle, as I'll give you an example of how it would go: Â You would get up, bike to work, which lets say takes an hour, work for 12 hours straight, return back within an hour. Â Now you have spent 14 hours. You are a heavy sleeper. You sleep for 9 hours. 23 hours have been spent out of 24. Your last hour is reserved for PHPFreaks. Â Within those 24 hours, Jack Bauer could have saved the world. Â Although I suppose I haven't accounted for inflation yet and how thats going is going to hurt some, but still all possible. Now at 2.15/HR, I wouldn't be arguing its feasible. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-951525 Share on other sites More sharing options...
xylex Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 You're seriously arguing that by working a steady 84 hour a week job you have plenty to live off of making minimum wage?  Anyway, back to the OP's question, it definitely depends on where in the country you are, but if you're looking for a Silicon Valley job, Andi Gutmans summed it up pretty good in an interview - "First of all, the Bay Area isn’t America (laughs). It’s so international, and there are a lot of different cultures."  In my experience, if you're good in this field, you're going to be working in environments that have always pulled the best and the brightest from all around the world, and everyone's used to working with "non-native" co-workers from all sorts of different backgrounds. Like wayne was saying, your nationality should be pretty low on your list of concerns. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-951543 Share on other sites More sharing options...
corbin Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 As long as your communication skills are good, you'll be fine. In fact, I don't think I would even think about the ethnicity of a programmer I were going to hire.   Pug, have you actually tried living on minimum wage? I've never done it myself, but I've worked a few minimum wage jobs with people who worked at minimum wage full time. Their lives essentially suck. I'm sure it varies by parts of the country, but minimum wage in my state is no where near high enough to live comfortably off of. And like CV said, by comfortable I don't mean with luxuries, I mean like, without wondering where you're going to come up with a dollar for the dollar menu at McDonalds so you can eat. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-951555 Share on other sites More sharing options...
PugJr Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009   Pug, have you actually tried living on minimum wage? I've never done it myself, but I've worked a few minimum wage jobs with people who worked at minimum wage full time. Their lives essentially suck. I'm sure it varies by parts of the country, but minimum wage in my state is no where near high enough to live comfortably off of. And like CV said, by comfortable I don't mean with luxuries, I mean like, without wondering where you're going to come up with a dollar for the dollar menu at McDonalds so you can eat.  Well, he said "enough", and there ambiguity was brought upon us. Is "enough" living in a 50000 square foot mansion? Or is "enough" just managing to just simply live? I was going to the latter and not the former. Must you live comfortably to be "enough"? Well then we must define what "comfortably" is standardized by.  But on the reasonable case of being comfortable, I would agree its not enough. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-951558 Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcombs_31 Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Sorry to stay off topic, but I don't see how you've come up with the other ridiculous numbers. $5 to eat? What's that, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all day? $600 apartment, not in my neck of the woods, more like $800 - 1000 for a 1 bedroom. $50 electric? Are you kidding? I average $200/month. Obviously you have no clue what you are talking about and the standard working day here is 8 hours, not 12. Anything over 8 is OT which most companies, especially those paying you minimum wage, will not pay, so good luck getting 2 jobs.  To the OP, I live in South Florida, probably the most diverse part of the country, where "Americans" are probably the minority. There is no reason you can't get a job in the US, in my case I'm at a disadvantage because I don't speak fluent spanish. It really all depends on where in the US you live. There are plenty of different demographics in different places. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-951715 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel0 Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Am I missing anything? Oh wait! Â Have you considered that there are actually people who have kids as well? So now we have food, clothes and toys for the kids. Considering you're working 12 hours per day, those children also need somewhere to stay after school and until you get home if they're not very old yet. I don't know about the US, but here that would easily be an extra $300/month/child for some sort of after school care. Let's not forget that more people requires more electricity, water and space. Â And then we are still assuming that you are working a ridiculous amount of 12 hours per day every day. Now if we say that you work 8 hours per day and there are 30 days in a month and you actually have weekends, that would be 7.25*8*22=1276 before tax, and if tax is 15% then you're down to $1085. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-951756 Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Minimum wage is 7.25$ an hour at this moment. Lets say you have a 12 hour work day, so thats 87$ a day * 30, $2610 a month. Thats a 15% tax, so...Now 2218$ with the odd cents off. I'm not exactly sure how you think you couldn't live off of 2218$ a month but okay...I'll give the overview of prices: (Based on monthly)  600$ - for an apartment. 150$ (5$ a day is easily enough to eat) - For food. 50$ - Water and electricity. 50$ - Internet. (50$ is fast internet too, but since you are CV, you need that internet.) 50$ - Toiletry and other such items. 15$ - Bike insurance (Now I don't actually have a clue how much that would cost.) Dunno - Medical Insurance (I really don't have a clue on how much that goes)  Am I missing anything? Oh wait!  5$ - PHPFreaks subscription.  Just from adding those numbers, its far less than 2218$ a month. Although I wouldn't like to live the lifestyle, as I'll give you an example of how it would go:  You would get up, bike to work, which lets say takes an hour, work for 12 hours straight, return back within an hour.  Now you have spent 14 hours. You are a heavy sleeper. You sleep for 9 hours. 23 hours have been spent out of 24. Your last hour is reserved for PHPFreaks.  Within those 24 hours, Jack Bauer could have saved the world.  Although I suppose I haven't accounted for inflation yet and how thats going is going to hurt some, but still all possible. Now at 2.15/HR, I wouldn't be arguing its feasible.  Dude seriously, stop pulling numbers out your ass. $600 for an apartment? Maybe an efficiency in a really bad side of town in some areas of the country. $150 for food. Yeah, you can swing that, eating beans and rice, ramen, etc.. $50 for water and electricity? ROFLMAO. Dude where do you live I'm totally moving there. My electricity and water runs a minimum of $300 a month, and that's during the 'off' seasons, when they aren't jacking up the prices extra high because it's summer and people are using more air conditioning, or winter and people are using more heater. My bill has been as high as $700. Sure, turning on the a/c isn't necessary, but you just try going through the winter without the heat. Esp when you live in an area where it get below 0 and stay that way for weeks on end.  $15 for bike insurance? Yes, because everybody drives motorcycles and gets the same rate as you. You may be able to live w/out a car, depending on where you live, but you'll probably just make up for it in other transportation costs, like bus, taxi, train, whatever. But you probably will have to have a car of some kind, and insurance is higher.  Oh and you're numbers are also assuming you are living by yourself. What about if you have a family? Efficiency won't cut it. Motorcycle won't cut it. Bills go up, esp food. I spend $150 a week on food and trust me, it ain't no steak and potatoes. Utilities go up.  Dude you obviously don't know what you're talking about. Living sheltered or else you're too young, haven't been out there yet.  p.s.- the min. wage only recently went up to $7.25. It was at $5.15 and only got bumped up recently. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-951760 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikesta707 Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 lol 5 dollars a day to eat. and 12 hours a week at 30 days per month? thats just absurd. Â Â Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-952014 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mchl Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 lol 5 dollars a day to eat. and 12 hours a week at 30 days per month? thats just absurd. Â Pretty much what I do Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-952020 Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 btw pug I love how your tax rate is based off of having dependents instead of single claiming 0... I'm m4 and get more than 15% taken out for taxes lol. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-952021 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikesta707 Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 lol 5 dollars a day to eat. and 12 hours a week at 30 days per month? thats just absurd.  Pretty much what I do  are you a college student? Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-952023 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mchl Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Nope. Just got my engineering degree. Â I'm a bit exaggerating of course. I work for a company belonging to my family, so that's almost work around the clock (sometimes without almost). And I don't actually spend a lot of money on food. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-952030 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikesta707 Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 ahh makes sense. I am a student so I do probably average around 5-10 dollars a day on food, and have some 12 hour days (2 jobs + full time school) But i have vacations and weekends so its all gravy in the end I suppose Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-952035 Share on other sites More sharing options...
PugJr Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 My whole case was based on that you are a lone person as I always thought CV was alone but perhaps I'm mistaken.  http://www.apartments.com/Results.aspx?page=results&state=ms&rgn2=155&helicon=0&area1=y&subarea1=y&prvpg=5&Rent_Minimum=0&Rent_Maximum=600  I also found one in Dallas Texas that was under 600$ and I'm sure more cities, just those are the first two things that I found. Although I'll be honest, these aren't prime housing units.  http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060913181418AAdPAK1  There we have our bike. I'm not talking about a motor-bike. I'm talking about a bicycle. Sounds like 15 at very, very minimum for miles an hour. 15 miles should be able to get you to your job.  Now food, I'll give you a selection:  Tuna + crackers + cheese + sauce. 1.15$. Thats one meal. 4 eggs + tortilla. 2.25$. Thats another meal. Fruits. No more than 1.5$ a pound. (For most anyways.) Beans. I don't remember too well for this, but no more than 50c for a meal of these, assuming you cook them. Ramen. 10c. Rice. Cheap, but no details.  Honestly, I don't see how you can spend 5$ a day from Ramen/Rice/Beans. That should be like 2$ a day or something. Although if you are obese and want to stay that way, you couldn't live off of 5$ an hour.  http://www.neo.ne.gov/statshtml/115.htm  Lets say we take 10c per kilowatt hour. My computer can't possibly exceed 300Watts. So if you are a lazy person and never shut down your computer, it would cost you, well,  Computer = 300 watts. Month in a second = 2592000. Total consumption = 2592000 * 300 = 777600000 Thats watts/month. Now kilowatts... = 777600/month. 777600 / (3600, due to it being kilowatt hour) = 216 * whatever rate your state charges, being 10c...= 21600 cents...216$? Hmm...Well lets be reasonable though. You aren't going to keep your computer on 24/7 and nor should your computer take 300 watts or anything near it. Lets say, 8 hours a day at 200 watts. 216$ / ((2/3) * (1/3)). 48$.   http://www.awwa.org/awwa/community/links.cfm?LinkCategoryID=20 (The albertville was the only one I could find that actually listed the cost directly) http://www.mub-albertville.com/water.asp  For 2000 gallons, its 8.20$. Honestly, how the heck could one person use 2000 gallons? 66 gallons a day? You either flush the toilet alot or take a() very long shower(s). So thats about 60$ or so a month. Fine, so 50$ was a low-estimate. Yeah, you aren't going to have heating/cooling either, but if you pick a nice place to live, like a Southern State (California, Florida, etc.) you could take a cold shower all year long.   Although I highly doubt you could live under 8hrs a day with removing weekends and reducing it to 5.15$ an hour, but that wasn't what you disagreed with. As I said before, this wouldn't be comfortable, but would be livable with the assumption of 30 work days a month, at new minimum wage, with 12 hours of work a day, and you are within 15 non-straight forward miles of food and your work.  I suppose I haven't accounted for when could you buy food? So lets take off a Sunday (As some of us do go to Church and religion is quite important to some of us). So now 26 days.  Okay, so what % of income tax do you have then? Even at 50% you might have enough money even still. My first calculation costs about 1000$ dollars a month out of some 2000$. Now with a child/wife that might be completely unrealistic, but with a wife, she could work as well and you take shifts so the child(ren) isn't alone and better hope you have some hella good kid(s).  Do realize people live under my scenario except with much less pay in 3rd world countries. It just seems totally unrealistic to anyone in a 1st world country as we are fit to live properly, not as something close to a slave and the main reason I believe this is possible is that I have a relative saying he lives under 13000$ or so a year. No internet. He doesn't own much, but owns his little moveable house, has a couple of dogs, and just lives a modest life. Although his housing tax is far less than what an apartment would cost. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-952163 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 All Americans are Foreigners, in fact if you get flak by white Americans, then their idiots, becuase their actually descendants of European immigrants. lol While this is true and perhaps somewhat hypocritical it's not like we actually trace back and understand much of our ancestry. If you go back just 20 generations there are over 1,000,000 people that make up your DNA, do you know even a small fraction of them? There's a point where it becomes unnecessary to track back where your ancestors are from and just consider yourself a natural citizen of that location (most people do it just by where they were born, not even referencing ancestors). Otherwise technically we're all just African immigrants. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-952169 Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 Pug all I'm saying is there is a wide range of costs associated in living. Not everybody can fit into that breadbox. Not everybody can live in the same place or have those things available. Prime climate to cut down on utilities? LoL. That == tourist location == even more expensive. And it's not fair to compare america with 3rd world countries, because their cost of living is a lot less. And if you think that you can just willy nilly stick your family up in a tent and eat beans all day long, apparently you've never heard of social services.  Yes, you don't *need* a lot of things to 'survive' but when you live in an area that expects a certain standard, you don't really have a whole lot of choice but to go with the flow. Funny how it's always the people who are sitting cozy who decide what's best for people, based on *need*. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-952178 Share on other sites More sharing options...
PugJr Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 CV, I'm not saying it isn't hard. I never did say that once as it would be very difficult. Â Btw, I'm not deciding whats best for people, I'm just saying its possible is all. Yes, I would not like to live that life style and nor would many other people (Ironically enough though, in some cases there are people who wouldn't mind to live like that. Eg. Mid-Africa, North Korea.). People can live however they want and I could care less as long as its not impacting me and by that I mean someone using violence or vandalism, not as in someone smoking at a bar and then I sniff in the smoke. Â EDIT: Also if this didn't exist, minimum wage would be significantly easier to live off of. Â http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-952183 Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 i like how no matter how fast I click that number increases by more than what I make in a year. My "share" of the debt my ass. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/180355-attitudes-toward-foreign-programmers/#findComment-952189 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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