6 ms·

Is this the start of the end of Silicon Valley (and other major tech hubs?) I know I'm being dramatic, but they can hire smart developers anywhere in the world.

Is this the start of the end of Silicon Valley (and other major tech hubs?) I know I'm being dramatic, but they can hire smart developers anywhere in the world. You could say what works for them won't work for a young startup but I'm not so sure honestly

iphone_elegance 6y ago
We're exploring outsourcing again
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  Not sure what you mean, this isn't outsourcing. This is remote first...two different things. In outsourcing the development is done by an entity which doesn't belong to you, that's a different thing.
  - three_seagrass 6y ago
    I believe what they meant to say was offshoring, not outsourcing.
- cobookman 6y ago
  Timezones matter. There's large benefits in having an entire team in the same timezone. If you've ever tried scheduling a call between India, East Coast US, Europe, and West Coast US...you've dealt with the fact that there's only a few hours a day such a call can occur, greatly limiting the ability to schedule last minute meetings.
  - joelbluminator 6y ago
    All big corps have development teams all over the world though no? I agree it's an issue. But the talent pool remote work opens to you is huge.
    - tanilama 6y ago
      It rarely organized in a way that cross many timezones. For the same team, it is at most 3 hour difference, I would say.
    - novok 6y ago
      And you learn to stop working with teams that are across big timezone gaps, for your own sanity.
      - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
        I dunno. I worked on a team of 3 with one in SF, one in Europe and one in Singapore. If you're OK with repeating meetings and work mostly async it's doable. You'll never get everyone together (unless someone takes a midnight meeting, but that's just cruel) except on special occasions, which sucks but it can be done.
  - vmception 6y ago
    In the last 4 years I've learned about the Americas. There is a wealth of engineering talent in Central and South America and its basically all within US business hours. They are about double the price of Asian and Eastern European developers. Which is about the price of a junior US developer. (Independent freelance devs try to charge about the same price that development firms charge you). This solves the time zone problem. The distribution of English proficiency amongst developers is about the same as the other places, where only occasionally you will encounter a real language barrier with one or two devs. Now that all big tech workers are digital nomads against their will, there are two entire continents that can chill on without stretching the time zone issue.
    - Apocryphon 6y ago
      Chile is an hour ahead of EST, and Argentina and Brazil are two hours ahead. Always wondered if they could serve as a good bridge between North American offices and Western Europe.
cbg0 6y ago
> Is this the start of the end of Silicon Valley Highly unlikely, there's still a lot of value in face-to-face meetings.
- Jyaif 6y ago
  If only there was a technology that allows you to have face-to-face meetings remotely.
  - PunchTornado 6y ago
    sadly, there is not. zoom is not face-to-face meeting.
  - benrbray 6y ago
    Yes, if only.
    - buboard 6y ago
      In a world in a pandemic and climate crisis , asking people to drive long distances, or worse, fly so that middle management can “observe facial expressions better” should be met with disapproval
      - benrbray 6y ago
        It's not middle management that benefits the most from in-person work. It's new hires and new grads (like me) who are just starting their careers and benefit a lot from knowledge gained passively in the workplace. And--wouldn't it be great if our cities were designed so that people don't need to drive long distances to work? Density + mass transit in cities would go a long way towards reducing emissions. (and no, we should not use the threat of a once-per-century pandemic to double down on isolated, suburban lifestyles--instead, we should work to make sure cities are clean and support a safe, sustainable density of people)
        buboard 6y ago
lvice 6y ago
> but they can hire smart developers anywhere in the world Sure they can, but the Silicon Valley has an immense human capital in skills, talent and knowledge that you can't find easily in the rest of the world. The type of complexity, the scale of the systems and the engineering culture that you can find in SF is not common around the world. My experience as a developer in an European country is that it is really difficult to encounter engineers with a real experience in developing truly complex systems and companies with true engineering cultures. This is simply due to the fact that the majority of the companies that need that high quality of engineering and are willing/capable to pay for it are based in the Bay area, therefore creating an ecosystem that is unique in the world. Of course there are a lot of exceptions, but I don't think the "they can hire smart developers anywhere in the world" is as easy at it may look.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  I don't agree with your Europe observation. Shopify could have easily been a European company (in fact, it's Canadian). Scaling is hard but is a very known problem. What Europe is missing is VC money and entrepreneurs. Many many European entrepreneurs flock to the U.S due to no VC money, not lack of engineering. And even if you think the U.S has a tremendous engineering advantage over Europe, it's still unclear to me why U.S tech companies have to set base in Silicon Valley and not Anywhere else in the US?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- higeorge13 6y ago
  These high-quality engineers and researchers have moved from all around the world to be in SV, it's not like they love to live in SF, LA, NYC or even in the US. They would easily work from their homes and close to their families in their countries, even with half of their current compensation. The effects of such decisions are going to be immense; people in the developed countries still live in a bubble thinking they are not going to be affected, but things will probably change dramatically the next couple of years.
  - 6y ago
tanilama 6y ago
Beginning of the end. I see very likely Bay Area salary is now peaked. It is not like companies prior to the pandemic aren't looking for alternative. Now this is just in full acceleration mode.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  Even if it wasn't for this quarantine and the economic fallout, you'd think the tech bubble would have eventually popped in a natural market correction anyway, and those salaries would have fallen in the same way that getting 6-figure jobs for "knowing HTML" fell after the original dot-com bubble.

iphone_elegance 6y ago

We're exploring outsourcing again

joelbluminator 6y ago
Not sure what you mean, this isn't outsourcing. This is remote first...two different things. In outsourcing the development is done by an entity which doesn't belong to you, that's a different thing.
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  I believe what they meant to say was offshoring, not outsourcing.
cobookman 6y ago
Timezones matter. There's large benefits in having an entire team in the same timezone. If you've ever tried scheduling a call between India, East Coast US, Europe, and West Coast US...you've dealt with the fact that there's only a few hours a day such a call can occur, greatly limiting the ability to schedule last minute meetings.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  All big corps have development teams all over the world though no? I agree it's an issue. But the talent pool remote work opens to you is huge.
  - tanilama 6y ago
    It rarely organized in a way that cross many timezones. For the same team, it is at most 3 hour difference, I would say.
  - novok 6y ago
    And you learn to stop working with teams that are across big timezone gaps, for your own sanity.
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      I dunno. I worked on a team of 3 with one in SF, one in Europe and one in Singapore. If you're OK with repeating meetings and work mostly async it's doable. You'll never get everyone together (unless someone takes a midnight meeting, but that's just cruel) except on special occasions, which sucks but it can be done.
- vmception 6y ago
  In the last 4 years I've learned about the Americas. There is a wealth of engineering talent in Central and South America and its basically all within US business hours. They are about double the price of Asian and Eastern European developers. Which is about the price of a junior US developer. (Independent freelance devs try to charge about the same price that development firms charge you). This solves the time zone problem. The distribution of English proficiency amongst developers is about the same as the other places, where only occasionally you will encounter a real language barrier with one or two devs. Now that all big tech workers are digital nomads against their will, there are two entire continents that can chill on without stretching the time zone issue.
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    Chile is an hour ahead of EST, and Argentina and Brazil are two hours ahead. Always wondered if they could serve as a good bridge between North American offices and Western Europe.

cbg0 6y ago

> Is this the start of the end of Silicon Valley Highly unlikely, there's still a lot of value in face-to-face meetings.

Jyaif 6y ago
If only there was a technology that allows you to have face-to-face meetings remotely.
- PunchTornado 6y ago
  sadly, there is not. zoom is not face-to-face meeting.
- benrbray 6y ago
  Yes, if only.
  - buboard 6y ago
    In a world in a pandemic and climate crisis , asking people to drive long distances, or worse, fly so that middle management can “observe facial expressions better” should be met with disapproval
    - benrbray 6y ago
      It's not middle management that benefits the most from in-person work. It's new hires and new grads (like me) who are just starting their careers and benefit a lot from knowledge gained passively in the workplace. And--wouldn't it be great if our cities were designed so that people don't need to drive long distances to work? Density + mass transit in cities would go a long way towards reducing emissions. (and no, we should not use the threat of a once-per-century pandemic to double down on isolated, suburban lifestyles--instead, we should work to make sure cities are clean and support a safe, sustainable density of people)
      - buboard 6y ago

lvice 6y ago

> but they can hire smart developers anywhere in the world Sure they can, but the Silicon Valley has an immense human capital in skills, talent and knowledge that you can't find easily in the rest of the world. The type of complexity, the scale of the systems and the engineering culture that you can find in SF is not common around the world. My experience as a developer in an European country is that it is really difficult to encounter engineers with a real experience in developing truly complex systems and companies with true engineering cultures. This is simply due to the fact that the majority of the companies that need that high quality of engineering and are willing/capable to pay for it are based in the Bay area, therefore creating an ecosystem that is unique in the world. Of course there are a lot of exceptions, but I don't think the "they can hire smart developers anywhere in the world" is as easy at it may look.

joelbluminator 6y ago
I don't agree with your Europe observation. Shopify could have easily been a European company (in fact, it's Canadian). Scaling is hard but is a very known problem. What Europe is missing is VC money and entrepreneurs. Many many European entrepreneurs flock to the U.S due to no VC money, not lack of engineering. And even if you think the U.S has a tremendous engineering advantage over Europe, it's still unclear to me why U.S tech companies have to set base in Silicon Valley and not Anywhere else in the US?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
higeorge13 6y ago
These high-quality engineers and researchers have moved from all around the world to be in SV, it's not like they love to live in SF, LA, NYC or even in the US. They would easily work from their homes and close to their families in their countries, even with half of their current compensation. The effects of such decisions are going to be immense; people in the developed countries still live in a bubble thinking they are not going to be affected, but things will probably change dramatically the next couple of years.
- 6y ago

tanilama 6y ago

Beginning of the end. I see very likely Bay Area salary is now peaked. It is not like companies prior to the pandemic aren't looking for alternative. Now this is just in full acceleration mode.

Apocryphon 6y ago
Even if it wasn't for this quarantine and the economic fallout, you'd think the tech bubble would have eventually popped in a natural market correction anyway, and those salaries would have fallen in the same way that getting 6-figure jobs for "knowing HTML" fell after the original dot-com bubble.