Mention “outsourcing” to a programmer and he may also be profanity. The word suggests all the evils that have befallen the information technology sector since the internet bubble burst a few years ago. We have been endlessly gifted with tragic stories of American companies going out of business for many of their IT positions, only to “offshore” those same jobs to overseas programmers working for less money than their American counterparts. A brain drain is taking place in the once highly secure computer programming profession.
However, instead of cursing the darkness, I recently found myself lighting a candle (or making the problem worse, depending on your perspective). You see, just over six months ago, I joined the outsourcing revolution. Therefore, I write this article in part as a confession, my own personal “mea culpa” of complicity.
No, I have not put myself up for auction to work for Indian rupees.
What I did was stumble upon several “reverse auction” websites to outsource talent. If you haven’t heard of them, they are called Elance.com (the largest site to date) or Guru.com. Both sites give companies the opportunity to outsource their projects to freelancers such as programmers, graphic artists, and writers. Freelancers from all over the world compete for open tenders and offer to perform these jobs on a contract basis for a fixed price.
I came across a site called Rentacoder. Unlike the two sites mentioned above, Rentacoder did not require a subscription fee. His take was a direct commission from each cost of the project. In a matter of minutes I posted my resume and profile. So I had to make a decision. What projects to tender? In addition to programming projects, they also listed writing jobs. I decided to bid on some of the writing work first, just to see how it went, and because I had always wanted to do some freelance writing.
In my first week, I won a bid to write a policy and procedures document. I completed that task, got paid, and then won another bid: a series of articles on investing in the stock market. Very soon I became addicted. I kept writing more … a whitepaper … website content … economics articles … sales letters … a chapter from a novel … over and over again. My payments were electronically transferred to my bank account, New Economy style.
This addiction has turned into a decent part-time income over the past six months. I have worked for clients as far away as Australia and Turkey, as well as clients on the east and west coasts of the United States. I became obsessed with how easy it was to do business this way on the Internet, where the whole world became my market. Then I got a book called Free Agent Nation, by a guy named Daniel Pink. It was about how “telecommuters” like me are transforming America by doing business in this novel way, working for “gigs” rather than permanent commitments to a single employer. I was part of another great thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t quit my day job yet.
Am I getting rich?
Hardly. I make a few hundred extra dollars a month, and yes, I have competition from workers in India. But now I am competing with them. The winning bid, in this case, does not always go to the lowest bidder. Writers in the United States have an advantage in this field. Some buyers of copywriting services prefer native English speakers.
However, as I said, there are also programming jobs posted on most of these sites. Can programmers in the United States make a living strictly from these sites? Probably not. But programmers who choose to work as freelancers can use these sites to supplement their income while hiring through normal personnel channels. They can make some meaningful connections in the process.
So there it is. I got it off my chest.
“My name is Nader Ghali and I joined the outsourcing revolution.”
I feel better. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few more offers to make.
