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If US developers saw the level of talent interviewing from South and Latin America, they would start campaigning against remote work immediately. I’m sure ther

by Swizec 5y ago

If US developers saw the level of talent interviewing from South and Latin America, they would start campaigning against remote work immediately. I’m sure there’s selection bias at play, but I did a huge interviewing stint recently and US engineers were on average bad and entitled, LATAM were amazing and eager. Guess who interviews better?

shagie 5y ago
There are a lot of jobs and companies where they don't want to go through the additional effort of hiring an individual from another country that has different tax laws, worker protection, insurance requirements, infrastructure availability... along with the implications of the company having a presence in that country. There are sufficiently many companies in the US that don't even like doing this across state lines - much less international boundaries. --- I won't argue with the "bad and entitled" aspect. I've seen that when doing interviews myself. There's a bit of "if you've got 1000 applications for three different positions, 900 of them are the same across those positions that are having difficulty getting hired". From https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/06/finding-great-developers-2/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/06/finding-great-deve... > Astute readers, I expect, will point out that I’m leaving out the largest group yet, the solid, competent people. They’re on the market more than the great people, but less than the incompetent, and all in all they will show up in small numbers in your 1000 resume pile, but for the most part, almost every hiring manager in Palo Alto right now with 1000 resumes on their desk has the same exact set of 970 resumes from the same minority of 970 incompetent people that are applying for every job in Palo Alto, and probably will be for life, and only 30 resumes even worth considering, of which maybe, rarely, one is a great programmer. OK, maybe not even one. And figuring out how to find those needles in a haystack, we shall see, is possible but not easy. There's an entire thread to head off on for the why this is the case. I will claim that for places where the salary isn't tech company stratospheric, the average entitlement goes down a bit.
- Swizec 5y ago
  I believe the typical solution for the paperwork problem is hiring people as freelancers/contractors. From the company’s perspective they’re a vendor that sends an invoice, from the worker’s perspective they’re a business handling their own taxes and whatnot. This works extremely well and everyone is happy. Even a low US salary is often huge by local standards and more than makes up for the overhead of running yourself as a business. Some countries even incentivize this. In Slovenia for example (where I started my career with this exact model), your effective income tax is 5% if you’re a solo business making under $100k/year. Typical local engineering salaries are $30k by comparison.
- leoc 5y ago
  I asssume (I'm very much not an expert) that there have to be security considerations too, particularly if you're hoping to hire from the sorts of countries where Google or Adobe wouldn't consider opening an office and hiring developers for in-person work. And in the kind of places where Google or SAP or whoever is hiring for local work, presumably you'll have to compete with those locally-based opportunities.
grumple 5y ago
I've heard this before. Recently discussed on HN relating to US CS skills vs major nations we outsource to: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/14/6732 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/14/6732 Outsourcing is not new. Many companies have tried it. Not just in CS, but extensively in CS. Not only are US CS skills higher, but communication is the most important skill in the industry. Good communicators add more value and do it faster than people with whom you struggle to communicate. People that don't understand that now will understand it after a few years of working with a company in a different time zone without a native grasp on English. Another problem you'll face is that outsourcing means that another company (since you usually just contract with a foreign company) is gaining expertise in your product, domain, and tech stack. That knowledge gained doesn't stick with your company. If you're unhappy with that company or they fail to perform in the future, you have to train a new team from scratch. A common pattern I've seen is that companies will outsource as a fledgling startup then move to insourcing after the MVP is up because it's easier to work with an internal, local team, and the initial team falls short once you get to the hard stuff. I do suspect there's selection bias. Most US devs are employed and well paid already. It's hard to get the good ones to apply for new jobs because tech hiring is a pain in the ass. Imagine having a full time job, family, life, and taking a day off for interviews (while working! what, we're supposed to take PTO?), or spending your weekend on a coding challenge? Most of the remaining applicants are probably the lower end of the talent pool - younger or bad. Your individual sample size is also likely too small to make broad judgments about entire nations.
marcosdumay 5y ago
There's certainly bias. If for no other reason, because an entry level salary on some FAANG is often larger than most senior developers can dream on receiving in Latin America.

by Swizec 5y ago

shagie 5y ago

There are a lot of jobs and companies where they don't want to go through the additional effort of hiring an individual from another country that has different tax laws, worker protection, insurance requirements, infrastructure availability... along with the implications of the company having a presence in that country. There are sufficiently many companies in the US that don't even like doing this across state lines - much less international boundaries. --- I won't argue with the "bad and entitled" aspect. I've seen that when doing interviews myself. There's a bit of "if you've got 1000 applications for three different positions, 900 of them are the same across those positions that are having difficulty getting hired". From https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/06/finding-great-developers-2/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/06/finding-great-deve... > Astute readers, I expect, will point out that I’m leaving out the largest group yet, the solid, competent people. They’re on the market more than the great people, but less than the incompetent, and all in all they will show up in small numbers in your 1000 resume pile, but for the most part, almost every hiring manager in Palo Alto right now with 1000 resumes on their desk has the same exact set of 970 resumes from the same minority of 970 incompetent people that are applying for every job in Palo Alto, and probably will be for life, and only 30 resumes even worth considering, of which maybe, rarely, one is a great programmer. OK, maybe not even one. And figuring out how to find those needles in a haystack, we shall see, is possible but not easy. There's an entire thread to head off on for the why this is the case. I will claim that for places where the salary isn't tech company stratospheric, the average entitlement goes down a bit.

Swizec 5y ago
I believe the typical solution for the paperwork problem is hiring people as freelancers/contractors. From the company’s perspective they’re a vendor that sends an invoice, from the worker’s perspective they’re a business handling their own taxes and whatnot. This works extremely well and everyone is happy. Even a low US salary is often huge by local standards and more than makes up for the overhead of running yourself as a business. Some countries even incentivize this. In Slovenia for example (where I started my career with this exact model), your effective income tax is 5% if you’re a solo business making under $100k/year. Typical local engineering salaries are $30k by comparison.
leoc 5y ago
I asssume (I'm very much not an expert) that there have to be security considerations too, particularly if you're hoping to hire from the sorts of countries where Google or Adobe wouldn't consider opening an office and hiring developers for in-person work. And in the kind of places where Google or SAP or whoever is hiring for local work, presumably you'll have to compete with those locally-based opportunities.

grumple 5y ago

I've heard this before. Recently discussed on HN relating to US CS skills vs major nations we outsource to: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/14/6732 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/14/6732 Outsourcing is not new. Many companies have tried it. Not just in CS, but extensively in CS. Not only are US CS skills higher, but communication is the most important skill in the industry. Good communicators add more value and do it faster than people with whom you struggle to communicate. People that don't understand that now will understand it after a few years of working with a company in a different time zone without a native grasp on English. Another problem you'll face is that outsourcing means that another company (since you usually just contract with a foreign company) is gaining expertise in your product, domain, and tech stack. That knowledge gained doesn't stick with your company. If you're unhappy with that company or they fail to perform in the future, you have to train a new team from scratch. A common pattern I've seen is that companies will outsource as a fledgling startup then move to insourcing after the MVP is up because it's easier to work with an internal, local team, and the initial team falls short once you get to the hard stuff. I do suspect there's selection bias. Most US devs are employed and well paid already. It's hard to get the good ones to apply for new jobs because tech hiring is a pain in the ass. Imagine having a full time job, family, life, and taking a day off for interviews (while working! what, we're supposed to take PTO?), or spending your weekend on a coding challenge? Most of the remaining applicants are probably the lower end of the talent pool - younger or bad. Your individual sample size is also likely too small to make broad judgments about entire nations.

marcosdumay 5y ago

There's certainly bias. If for no other reason, because an entry level salary on some FAANG is often larger than most senior developers can dream on receiving in Latin America.