Inside scoop: Heard some concrete info from a very solid internal source about the roadmap for backfills. If you're a manager in the US, Canada, Germany, India, or France, you already know how brutal it is to replace departures right now. Managers are being forced to provide double and triple justifications just to get a basic backfill approved, and even then, finance is pushing to have them relocated.The funniest part? Management has officially panicked themselves into believing India is "too expensive" now. Yes, you read that right. The old corporate golden child is suddenly a margin liability because of high Bangalore wage inflation which now makes it not a low cost hub anymore. So while the West and even get starved out through natural attrition, Egypt is the new favorite child. They have about 450 people in Cairo now, completely insulated from the layoffs, and corporate is quietly funneling the core software and EDA tooling work over there because the currency devaluation makes it a fraction of the cash burn. If you're waiting on a local backfill approval in the US, Germany, Canada, France, anymore in Western Europe or even India—don't hold your breath.
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On the Ansys side: Manager in an EMEA country with strict labour laws and high cost, I requested for a job requisition last week and it was denied today and was told to open it up in Vietnam, even though I mentioned it can’t be relocated. This is never happened before at Ansys. I think it has all begun at the end.
@se I agree. I have employees in my report line from USA, India, Portugal, Germany, Armenia and Mexico and the cost usually goes somewhat like this, USA (also depends on Sunnyvale or another location) being the highest with Germany coming a distant second, followed by Portugal and India being almost equal with staff and senior staff in India being more expensive than in Portugal while juniors in Portugal are more expensive, followed by Mexico and lastly Armenia is the most cost effective by the wide margin. Also has incredible talent availability.
Let’s not forget Armenia. It’s the most cost efficient to talent quality place for Synopsys. If I’m not wrong, it’s much cheaper than India but more expensive than Egypt and Chile.
I’m not a manager but just an IC based in the US, is it true that hiring in the locations mentioned have become next to impossible? Any other manager here who can confirm?
Replacing the mature R&D hubs in NA, EMEA and APAC with Egypt, Chile, Brazil and Mexico due to high cost in the former seems a bit far fetched since these countries don’t have a customer base like the others. But I would like others to confirm?
@cb’s right @OP, it is not just Egypt but also Chile, Brazil and Mexico. It’s obvious that today’s wages in India are no longer the El Dorado anymore, so it’s just better to move to places like Egypt, Chile, Brazil and Mexico. And hiring in the mature R&D centres across North America, Europe and Asia will just centre around specialised roles and customer access, that’s exactly what happened to India in favour of the other countries I mentioned. It’s just the same rules of capitalism and what made my father lose his factory job in US to Chinese workers.
Chile is also growing, and not just contractors. Another plus is a half day overlap with PST.
@OP There are others reasons why India lost favorism. First Synopsys couldn't compete with tech giants, like Google, Microsoft, to acquire the top tier talents. Second, retention rate in India is terriblely low. We spent a lot of resources to train a new hire just to find he decides to leave after one or two years.
wait....why are there so many "managers".
What are you even managing
Since when has Synopsys cared to pay a premium for high quality tech talent? If offshore is cheap enough, it's good enough.
This is hardly unexpected. As a manager based in the EMEA region with direct reports in India, I have seen how tech wages there have risen dramatically over the last 10 years. It makes little sense to expand there purely from a cost perspective unless you’re hiring for market/customer proximity and specialized skills.
@ab No, he is from Lebanon but grew up in States
With all due respect, but I doubt they will find the high quality tech talent needed for cutting edge product development in Egypt, as they can be found in the established high tech hubs.
Great hospitality and snorkeling there, yes, but long gone are the days they built the pyramids ;-)
Plus, the occasional radical brother might slip in...
Capital will always follow the cheapest labor rates. Today Egypt, tomorrow Africa.
@OP here, corrected this bit because I made a typo in the post.
“So while the West and even India get starved out through natural attrition, Egypt is the new favorite child. ”