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The services are not of equivalent value. And while I'm not saying you can't have a distributed remote team, the approach of outsourcing software labour to che

The services are not of equivalent value. And while I'm not saying you can't have a distributed remote team, the approach of outsourcing software labour to cheaper markets has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not work. Unfortunately, few people in this field have the career longevity and experience to have seen this play out. Remote work works when you've expanded your talent pool to get _better_ talent. And while it can help you stretch your budget, if you're at the point where you're lowballing the foreign talent that you're already getting at a 50% haircut on a newly-minted local developer, you're fucking doing it wrong.

BeetleB 5y ago
> And while I'm not saying you can't have a distributed remote team, the approach of outsourcing software labour to cheaper markets has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not work. If your goal is primarily to cut costs, yes. If your goal is to hire good engineers and you want to access a global market, the data likely shows the opposite. 2 jobs ago, we had teams in 4 different countries. The top performing team was in a 3rd world country. The US based team (which was the "home" team) was 3rd in terms of performance. All teams worked 40 hours a week or so. When you can pay above market wages in a cheaper country, you can get pretty good talent. They couldn't afford to pay above market in the US, and frankly, it didn't matter. Most jobs will not benefit from having everyone be outstanding. This wasn't a startup or a FAANG level position. Hiring people in a poorer country was a win-win. Even if we start going to FAANG companies, they have teams in other countries. I guarantee they are paying them less than what they pay in the Bay area. And I'm pretty sure that "it does work" for them.