Writing for the Denver Post , Andy Vuong asserts that Quark Inc. is shifting its engineering resources from its Colorado-based headquarters to India. Vuong said that the company’s Denver workforce has been cut in half while the company has hired aggressively to fill new engineering positions opened overseas. The information comes in a new article entitled Quark shifting jobs to India.
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Spokesman Glen Turpin denied the suggestion, calling Denver “the nerve center” for Quark’s operations. Turpin also told Vuong that Quark is hiring at all of its offices. Vuong explained that none of the company’s openings at its Denver facility are for engineering positions, however. He also indicated that some U.S. software engineers have been told that they’ll lose their jobs within a couple of months, once their positions are filled in India.
If accurate, Quark’s move mirrors the efforts of many other software and hardware development companies in the US, who have turned to India because of a plentiful, well-educated workforce that comes much cheaper than their U.S. counterparts. Software and hardware engineering, some manufacturing, Q.A. and call center support facilities are all available to U.S. firms in India for much less than their U.S. equivalents.
Quark director of operations Jeff Mantz said the decision to hire Indian programmers is based on performance, not cost. He suggested to Vuong that the Denver engineers “haven’t measured up” compared with their overseas counterparts.
Vuong cited an article last year with Quark CEO Fred Ebrahimi in The Tribune, an Indian newspaper. Ebrahimi told the publication that Quark planned to hire 500 engineers in India — Vuong suggested that about 300 Indian engineers are currently employed by the company. (Thanks to MacCentral reader Brian Garrett for info used in this article.)