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Yes - every development area I see outsourced - code quality drops immediately.

And it’s no longer just developers - hardware engineers, server admins, business analysts....no IT dicipline is safe from the H1B virus at this point.

I’ve been in the industry 20 years now, and I don’t expect it to exist as a career path for anyone except imported H1B workers path within the next 5 years if Obama, the Dems, and the Chamber servicing GOP-E knee-padders get their way. That includes myself.

This

Yes - every development area I see outsourced - code quality drops immediately.

does not jibe with this

I’ve been in the industry 20 years now, and I don’t expect it to exist as a career path for anyone except imported H1B workers path within the next 5 years if Obama, the Dems, and the Chamber servicing GOP-E knee-padders get their way. That includes myself.

Nah, IT as a career path is already gone. If you are still doing it, it is imperative to use the time you have left to study for a career change. In a way, IT is a victim of its own success in the 90's: the function got so important - and so expensive - that senior managements vowed if the opportunity ever came they were going to do anything possible to get out from under what they perceived, then and now, to be a massive pile of overhead with marginal benefits. Now their minds are set, and they will never be able see an IT department as anything but a hard-to-manage cost center, to be trimmed back at every opportunity.

But that's actually OK. The need for automation hasn't disappeared, just the desire to accomplish it with a dedicated IT department. As Nicholas Carr predicted some years back, IT is being absorbed back into the job functions that use it. Being good at it gives you a leg up - if you are also good at a business function the company values. If not, then you will eventually find yourself in an ugly place - competing with the other "dedicated" IT professionals like yourself, who are located in Bangalore and work for $9/hour.