> The pay well and have great benefits but it's just not enough people out there to take these jobs and manage a full on-prem infrastructure. I’m from a small

> The pay well and have great benefits but it's just not enough people out there to take these jobs and manage a full on-prem infrastructure. I’m from a small province in Canada and we have similar problems here sometimes. One of the questions I sometimes have to ask clients when they make a statement like that is: “do you pay well for the area? Or do you pay well enough to attract talent from out-of-province?” This often leads to them arguing that “but the cost of living is low here!” And inevitably I have to mention my friends who left the province to go to the Bay Area for 10 years and came back with $500k USD in stocks they collected, on top of what they had left over after paying their high cost-of-living rent. I feel your pain. Companies running in less desirable areas have to somehow pay a premium for top tier talent. One way, as you mention, is to outsource, whether to cloud providers or part time contractors. This isn’t meant as a brag at all, but I do the independent contractor thing here and make “pretty darned good for the area” money. Inevitably clients will ask me to come work full-time for them, and we have a painful conversation where I tell them what my taxable income was the year before, as well as the investments I made into equipment and licenses I use to provide the services I provide. The result so far has always been to continue being happy with me as a part-time contractor! Edit: sorry for the typos, written on mobile with the swipe text thing