5 ms·

> It is worth noting that software salaries are artificially inflated HEAVILY due to a general unwillingness or lack of interest in hiring overseas developers.

> It is worth noting that software salaries are artificially inflated HEAVILY due to a general unwillingness or lack of interest in hiring overseas developers. Because it's been tried before and for the most part it was an abysmal failure. I was just starting out doing some basic web freelancing as a teenager in the 2000s and even I got roped in to clean up an outsourced project after being outbid a year earlier by an overseas firm during the first outsourcing wave. Lots of people on HN have horror stories of cleaning up from that era. We've been here several times before - like literally just this past year of everyone saying "oh but now you have to compete with remote workers everywhere!" Salaries keep rising because software is an arms race. The companies making the most profit will continue to invest in getting the best people and outside of the odd global crisis, the industry will continue to grow as everyone else tries to keep up both in technology and in hiring. All those firms I cleaned up after as a kid are still around today and bigger than ever, yet on this side of the ocean we keep making more and more money. I think we've got at least a century before software hits the diminishing returns that the industrial revolution did. My local lumberyard is still using DOS machines probably made before I was born.

mech422 5y ago
I've been thru off-shorting with India, China, Russia... I'm sorta wondering what country would be next. It has to have a large enough labor pool to fill the positions, and still be cheap enough to at least look good on paper..
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  My guess is most likely Africa, though I think somewhere in Central or South America would have a very strong advantage due to the narrower time offset.
- Tarsul 5y ago
  at least here in Germany the biggest companies like to expand into Eastern Europe (think Slovakia, Hungary, also Russia), where these IT experts help in the German projects. They even get many of those people to learn German! The price pressure doesn't really stop there because while at first Slovakia was the way to go, now Hungary is xx% cheaper.. and so on and so on...
  - tkiolp4 5y ago
    For the Hungarian HN readers: these are the salary ranges you should aim at when working for a German company (remotely or in Germany): - junior: 45K - 55K - medior: 60K - 75K - senior: 75K - 90K Although getting more than 85K as an individual contributor is not easy.
    - matmatmatmat 5y ago
      Whether in EUR or USD, those numbers will feel pretty good in Hungary.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
rootusrootus 5y ago
Overall I agree with you, and my experience has been similar, but I think the comparison with outsourcing is not correct. I would argue that outsourcing failed primarily due to companies trying to farm out the coding to uninterested entities whose incentives did not align well. Not necessarily because the foreign workers doing the coding were bad. Back to the guy in Argentina -- I imagine that he/she is actually in a reasonably good position as the amount of remote work increases. Indians not so much, because they are 12.5 hours ahead (of Pacific time). Argentina is only 4 hours ahead, which makes for a lot more overlap. So I think the field has leveled a little bit in that sense, because if you have a remote developer in another state, they are not very different than one in another country who happens to be in a similar time zone. The other big barrier IMO is communication, so someone in Argentina who is not merely fluent in English but speaks it very clearly could be in a really strong position.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I'm in regular calls from the East coast US to central Europe so, usually, a six hour difference. That feels about the limit to me before things get more difficult, people need to work outside of normal business hours, etc. You can do bigger differences and many of us do on occasion. But on a multiple times a week basis, both 5am calls and 11pm calls get old.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    Yup, and it's worse if you're on the US west coast, where it becomes 9 hours (10 to eastern Europe), and then any synchronous meeting means one party gets up early or the other stays late. My intuition is that a max of 3 or 4 time zones is the sweet spot, but it's cool to hear that you've had success up to 6.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      The team I'm on have our calls with the Czech Republic at 9am or 10am. And we have calls with the UK in earlyish business hours to noon as well. They may end up working a bit later with action items from meetings but generally seems to work pretty well.
dcist 5y ago
I recall this period as well (early to mid 2000s) and the fears of overseas workers led me to change my college major at the time. There was also still a big hangover effect from the 2000 dot com bubble. I remember seeing low developer salaries and, although I at least somewhat enjoyed coding and tinkering around with technical things, there were other pursuits I enjoyed more. I kind of regret not sticking with computer science but my career has turned out fairly well (although I think I would have optimized my income faster if I had stayed a computer science major).

mech422 5y ago

I've been thru off-shorting with India, China, Russia... I'm sorta wondering what country would be next. It has to have a large enough labor pool to fill the positions, and still be cheap enough to at least look good on paper..

rootusrootus 5y ago
My guess is most likely Africa, though I think somewhere in Central or South America would have a very strong advantage due to the narrower time offset.
Tarsul 5y ago
at least here in Germany the biggest companies like to expand into Eastern Europe (think Slovakia, Hungary, also Russia), where these IT experts help in the German projects. They even get many of those people to learn German! The price pressure doesn't really stop there because while at first Slovakia was the way to go, now Hungary is xx% cheaper.. and so on and so on...
- tkiolp4 5y ago
  For the Hungarian HN readers: these are the salary ranges you should aim at when working for a German company (remotely or in Germany): - junior: 45K - 55K - medior: 60K - 75K - senior: 75K - 90K Although getting more than 85K as an individual contributor is not easy.
  - matmatmatmat 5y ago
    Whether in EUR or USD, those numbers will feel pretty good in Hungary.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

rootusrootus 5y ago

Overall I agree with you, and my experience has been similar, but I think the comparison with outsourcing is not correct. I would argue that outsourcing failed primarily due to companies trying to farm out the coding to uninterested entities whose incentives did not align well. Not necessarily because the foreign workers doing the coding were bad. Back to the guy in Argentina -- I imagine that he/she is actually in a reasonably good position as the amount of remote work increases. Indians not so much, because they are 12.5 hours ahead (of Pacific time). Argentina is only 4 hours ahead, which makes for a lot more overlap. So I think the field has leveled a little bit in that sense, because if you have a remote developer in another state, they are not very different than one in another country who happens to be in a similar time zone. The other big barrier IMO is communication, so someone in Argentina who is not merely fluent in English but speaks it very clearly could be in a really strong position.

ghaff 5y ago
I'm in regular calls from the East coast US to central Europe so, usually, a six hour difference. That feels about the limit to me before things get more difficult, people need to work outside of normal business hours, etc. You can do bigger differences and many of us do on occasion. But on a multiple times a week basis, both 5am calls and 11pm calls get old.
- kelnos 5y ago
  Yup, and it's worse if you're on the US west coast, where it becomes 9 hours (10 to eastern Europe), and then any synchronous meeting means one party gets up early or the other stays late. My intuition is that a max of 3 or 4 time zones is the sweet spot, but it's cool to hear that you've had success up to 6.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    The team I'm on have our calls with the Czech Republic at 9am or 10am. And we have calls with the UK in earlyish business hours to noon as well. They may end up working a bit later with action items from meetings but generally seems to work pretty well.

dcist 5y ago

I recall this period as well (early to mid 2000s) and the fears of overseas workers led me to change my college major at the time. There was also still a big hangover effect from the 2000 dot com bubble. I remember seeing low developer salaries and, although I at least somewhat enjoyed coding and tinkering around with technical things, there were other pursuits I enjoyed more. I kind of regret not sticking with computer science but my career has turned out fairly well (although I think I would have optimized my income faster if I had stayed a computer science major).