Keith Rull : Filipino Developer

What Happened At SoCal Code Camp And The Best Session I Attended!

keithrull — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:09:00 GMT

Woohoo! That was a great Code Camp. Thanks to Woody and the gang for making this event happen. It was a fun and knowledge-filled event. I even got swags (a few books, a shirt, a small bag and a gym cup from Avanade). I saw a few Filipino devs in the event (Marlo, a .NET Developer from Long Beach and Marlon Ribunal) which was fun because I was used to being the only Filipino in the crowd (Yup, Woody can confirm that :P). I saw two other guys but I wasn't able to approach them (because i'm shy :P). Next time I'll take the chance to communicate with them and probably sway them to join DevPinoy. All in all there was 6 Filipino Devs in the event (that's me and my wife, marlo, marlon and the two other Filipino guys) that I was able to count.

Ok, time for best session in SoCal Code Camp award.

The best session that I attended was the session of Scott Hodson, president of Ubero called "Programmer to CEO: Starting your own software business". It talks about how you can start your own business, the processes that you need to go through to have one, the mindset that you should have when you are thinking of starting your own business, the people you need to communicate with in order to get the funds you need (VCs and Angel Investors) and the pain that you will go through while trying to make all the parts of your business move.

I was really impressed with the amount of knowledge that Scott provided to us in his talk and it opened my eyes on how I continue my dream of building a world-class Filipino owned outsourcing company. I do consulting on the side when I have the time and have outsourced projects to Manila in the past. I have people I trust with certain types of projects but never had the ability to consolidate this resources into one great enterprise. I know I could but I don't have the funds yet to start building this dream. Probably in a year or two I can make abigger push to make it happen but in the meantime I have decided on focusing on building applications that I can market to generate funds (which i need to revisit). I have a couple of ideas here and there but after listening to Scott I realized that I need to go back to the drawingboard and start analyzing my goals, resources and ideas. Man, what an eyeopener. His presentation should be available to download in a few days so don't forget to go and checkout the SoCal Code Camp site to get this presentation.

That was fun! The next one would be at UC San Diego this June and I'm going to be there again. I hope this time we can sway Jon Galloway, Ben Sheirman , Scott Koon and other great speakers to talk in San Diego.

Outsourcing in the Philippines is still cheap

keithrull — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:05:00 GMT

I just saw this because Jojo Paderes had his status in GTalk pointing to this link.

According to Mercer, the Philippines is still one of the cheapest IT outsorcing destination in the world. The figures states that as of 2007 IT Managers in Manila only earn $22,280/year on an averaged ranking third compared to Switzerland, the highest paying country which has their IT managers average a whooping $140,960/year^[link].

Figure 1*

IT Manager: 10 top-paying countries (various currencies)
		Local	USD	EUR	GBP
1	Switzerland	176,920	140,960	110,990	74,150
2	Denmark	722,310	123,080	96,890	64,750
3	Belgium	95,380	121,170	95,380	63,760
4	UK	62,180	118,190	93,090	62,180
5	Ireland	85,200	108,230	85,200	56,950
6	US	107,500	107,500	84,650	56,550
7	Germany	84,020	106,730	84,020	56,160
8	Canada	106,000	93,860	73,870	49,370
9	Hong Kong (China)	702,720	90,340	71,120	47,530
10	Australia	115,480	88,850	69,950	46,740

Figure 2*

IT Manager: 10 lowest-paying countries (various currencies)
		Local	USD	EUR	GBP
1	Vietnam	15,470	15,470	12,180	8,140
2	Bulgaria	34,25o	22,240	17,510	11,700
3	Philippines	1,106,700	22,280	17,540	11,720
4	India	1,120,490	25,000	19,680	13,150
5	Indonesia	289,155,000	31,720	24,970	16,690
6	China (Shanghai)	265,810	33,770	26,580	17,770
7	Malaysia	129,930	35,260	28,040	18,740
8	Czech Republic	791,430	35,880	28,250	18,880
9	China (Beijing)	285,130	36,220	28,520	19,060
10	Argentina	133,040	43,180	33,990	22,720

Figure 3*

Figure 4*

IT Manager: 5 highest paying positions in Asia
		Local	USD
1	Hong Kong	1 702,723.00	90,344.03
2	Australia	2 115,483.00	88,846.75
3	Japan	3 10,347,000.00	87,638.17
4	South Korea	4 69,374,000.00	74,022.62
5	Singapore	5 104,127.00	66,615.70

IT Manager: 5 lowest paying positions in Asia
		Local	USD
1	Vietnam	1 15,473.00	15,473.00
2	Philippines	2 1,106,700.00	22,281.05
3	India	3 1,120,486.00	24,996.90
4	Indonesia	4 289,155,000.00	31,721.24
5	China - Shanghai	5 265,814.00	33,768.74

*Note:

Average total cash compensation includes base pay and annual bonus.
Foreign exchange conversions were made as of November 2006.
Source: Mercer: 2007 IT Pay around the World.

You can treat the numbers above in different ways... either Manila is not getting the big piece of the pie because we are undervalued (considering that we are the largest english speaking nation in Asia) or... That we can attract more companies to outsource to Manila because we are talented and cheap enough to do projects for other countries which means a larger economic growth for our country.

I think the numbers above would fluctuate specially knowing that the US Dollar is currently in a slow decline and Euro starting to dominate the markets.

The Philippines has a great talent pool when it comes to IT and most of the them work hard to hone their skills even if they don't get paid that much. That's what I call responsibility and commitment to bringing ang building a world class application from a truely world class workforce.

Hayy, I hope Manila gets a bigger piece of the pie :( Till then, Mabuhay ka Filipino Developer!

Even images should pass quality assurance

keithrull — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:04:00 GMT

I was explaining the benefits of outsourcing projects in Manila today to someone who has a huge project.. probably between 1 year to 2 years of development amounting to atleast $50K for the initial concept. He asked me to help him find a suitable outsourcing company preferrably in Asia. I then made a push to have him look at several company's in Manila which he agreed... what i did next was show him a website of a known development company. He read everything and browsed every page on their site to get more information about them. We were having a great conversation and I think he ha already decided that he is going to contact this one company but then he decided to look at their methodologies section... there he noticed something that he didn't like about the website...

"Some comment?" What? Nice coding standard there buddy.

I mean, come on! If you are posting a code snippet to an ad atleast make sure that the code looks good and follows your motto "Code of Discipline" because to tell you frankly it makes your company look bad when you don't QA what you push to visitors even if it's just an image.

In the end, he got turned off and asked me to show him a different outsourcing company.

Sad. Sad. Sad. A missed opportunity.

Even Linux Gurus Have Their Match

keithrull — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:50:00 GMT

It's true. Everybody has their own match. Their own weakness. Their own kryptonite that would hold them to their knees and trade their philosophies and senses for a chance to break free.

And for my friend who is a recognized Linux and Java guru(he founded the largest Java User Group in the Philippines) its the skimpy pants and hanging shirts.

The photo was taken on a Linux conference in Manila back in 2005. Just look at how hard Melvin held on to Microsoft. Mercy!

*Disclaimer* According to Melvin, He still preffers Linux over Windows and he swears that all he did that day was touch Microsoft but never had the chance to use it. :P

My Startup And How A 12 Year Old Inspired Me Today

keithrull — Tue, 15 May 2007 19:42:00 GMT

I saw this news today courtesy of Migz Paraz about a 12 year-old kid who is starting his own company and I was amaze about his idea. I think its great idea and with the right UI and advertising i'm pretty sure it will go up, way up where everybody who has a "Making IT big in IT" dream would want to go. I salute you.

I always say to people who ask me advice about how to start their own company "If you can't invent, Innovate" ;) Believe me, there are alot of opportunities out there right now... If might not a new idea.. it could something that can make an existing app better and transform it into the "killer app". Just this morning i woke up with another idea.. did my research the whole day if it already exist and found out that it is still an untap market. I don't have the resource yet to start on this new endeavor but i do see myself working on it pretty soon(i have atleast 5 startup ideas brewing and 2 of them are currently in the works).

Life is like the game of chess... its an equal playing field where anybody can be a pawn all his life tied with living from paycheck to paycheck or work hard and climb to the top until he becomes the king. I don't want to be a pawn all my life that's why i'm dreaming big and I believe each and everyone of us should do the same way.

I want this dreams to happen and I want it to happen now.

Sucessful people dont dream the dreamers dream.. they make it a reality. The cool thing about it is that all of us can dream and all of us can make it a reality. With the right mindset, the drive to succeed and faith in God i think anyone can be somebody someday but it takes patience and alot of effort to accomplish your goals so be prepared to handle it.

Thanks for the inspiration Luke and God Bless to your startup. As for me, I'll go back to my machine... think... pray.. code... then believe that someday my simple idea can bring me to my promise land.

Isang Libo na po kami! (We are one thousand!)

keithrull — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 22:23:00 GMT

Hey! Isn't this nice? After a year and six months since we started we have reached 1,000+ users. Most of the people who found this website was thru this keyword.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Filipino+developer+forum

Mabuhay ka Filipino Developer! Salamat sa lahat ng supporta!

Outsourcing for $4?

keithrull — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 14:33:00 GMT

Wow! Manila and Cebu is pickingup on the outsourcourcing market. I just saw this at craigslist and man this guys are competitive with the other outsourcing shops that i saw in the past dew weeks(i saw another company asking for $8 an hour)? anybody here who works for this guys?

Another Pinoy MVP!

keithrull — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 14:49:00 GMT

Our very own Edwin Sarmiento has just been given the award of MVP for Windows SBS!

About Edwin Sarmiento

Edwin Sarmiento is a Filipino who works as a senior systems engineer/DBA for Fujitsu Asia Pte Ltd managing servers and databases for a multinational company located in 10 countries. He is passionate about technology and is working on mobility and business intelligence during his spare time. He has frequently spoken at several Microsoft events on SQL Server, .NET and Windows SBS.

You can read his MVP Profile here:

https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile=8A85831C-6A7A-453F-B2BF-AFD27150A662

Congratulations Bro! We are proud of you! Sana magpost ka naman sa blog mo dito:P

hmmm! I wonder whose going to be next :)