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Honest question: Why would a company pay an US based engineer a high salary when they can get a team overseas equally or even more qualified (whatever metrics y

Honest question: Why would a company pay an US based engineer a high salary when they can get a team overseas equally or even more qualified (whatever metrics you prefer to use: leetcode count, school ranking, GitHub stars, etc...) for the same amount of money or less? I understand if you are Raedon/Being/... Wouldn't remote work at least in the US force local engineer to accept less money for their work?

trhway 5y ago
No. Companies able to manage additional offshore complexity produce enough per engineer to not care for the savings, and the effort required to deal with that complexity can in many cases be more productively spent on growing revenues. Such companies go offshore for additional talent, not savings.
- busterarm 5y ago
  ^ This. Engineering needs product management. This isn't cheap or easy to do when you're offshoring for cost.
foobiekr 5y ago
Time zone. For whatever reason, and not for lack of looking, there aren't really development ecosystems like India/Pakistan/Estonia/Slovakia/... in south and central america.
- elboru 5y ago
  I’m a developer located in Latin America, I’ve worked for several clients and I know tons of companies that outsource work from here. What do you think is missing? I sincerely would like to know the perception from the other side.
  - foobiekr 5y ago
    Sorry for the delay. I would say it's a variety of things. One, a lot of what makes India and Pakistan work, or Slovakia, are that there are class natives who can navigate the vetting process. This is huge and there are tons of Indians or Chinese in the valley who can fill this role but who are themselves demonstrated top-tier talent, not just people selling outsourced teams of unknown quality. Second, English. English is simply an absolute requirement and one of the things that absolutely kills non-US teams is a lack of English skills. Chinese teams have a lot of problems here and it gets even worse elsewhere. Eastern European teams (Poland, Estonia, Solvakia, ...) tend to have competent technical leads (not salesguys) with solid english skills even if the average is zero. I deal with a ton of people who have marginal English skills, but there's a very steep ramp between Bangalore, Chennai, ... and then other options. Third, and importantly, the populations are large enough that they can provide outsourced work at scale - I'm not talking huge numbers, I'm talking managing a team size of 30-40 people even with departures, etc. Fourth, there's an honest question of demonstrated competence (or demonstrated good-enough mediocrity, more often than not). Fifth, there's work culture. I know Indian, Chinese, and eastern european work culture. I know what to expect and there's basically been a selection process at work selecting outsourcing destinations based on what actually works. I'm probably starting something in a few months. I'd much rather outsource to a common time zone with Pacific or at least eastern time. I wish I could find a way.
    - elboru 5y ago
      Thank you for taking the time to answer. It’s insightful to get to know the perspective from the other side. If it helps, I can recommend you to take a look at https://nearsoft.com/ https://nearsoft.com/ it’s a Mexican company, I personally know very talented people working there. They have high standards during interviews, they seem to really care about who they hire (disclaimer, I don’t work there). Also, even though Costa Rica is a small country they have an interesting growing IT industry, if you haven’t already, you should check it out. I’ve met several great Costa Rican developers. I hope you find what you’re looking for! :)
masterof0 5y ago
Makes sense.
subpixel 5y ago
I believe it will, and what Google has done, by adjusting (down) remote salaries, essentially hands managers at lesser companies an argument-ending example. There will be exceptions, especially among the most skilled and experienced HN readers. But I am on calls all day with engineers and managers whose salaries may vary by six figures depending largely on their location. When the results of paying far less are acceptable to companies, companies will pay less and less.
ameixaseca 5y ago
Yes but you also have a number of other issues to take into account: timezones, language barriers, cultural differences, ability of an engineer to get on a plane/car/train/boat and meet face-to-face in a reasonable amount of time, and so forth. Remote work within borders is one thing, but remote work from different continents is an entirely different beast. Not to mention the sheer difference in labour-related laws and conventions across the world and how little recourse you may have if - let's say - your employee decides to take your source code with them and resell. Or take the idea and start a product themselves. Or anything similar that you could very easily sue locally. How much trouble would you go to sue? Translate and certificate every document? Comply with local laws regarding representation? Can you even sue? You may think these are extreme examples, and yes it all tends to work out in general, but even with local employees people sometimes get burn so you need to take these into account when jumping into something uncertain. It's becoming more common for sure but there are risks and they are not null.
frozenport 5y ago
Many small companies lack the ability to organize these kinds of efforts, as hiring is usually local or word of mouth. Large companies like NVIDIA/Intel/Microsoft have tried to do it with mixed results. In particular your savings rarely exceed 50%.
justaguy88 5y ago
If they can put them in US-compatible timezone, sure. But coordinating teams across anything more than a 4-ish hour difference is a total pain
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
> when they can get a team overseas equally or even more qualified (whatever metrics you prefer to use: leetcode count, school ranking, GitHub stars, etc...) Those people are already in demand and oversubscribed, so the US-based engineers are still in demand. Yes, companies would love to pay less, but at the high end it is already a world market for talent.
sebular 5y ago
The simple answer is that "whatever metrics you prefer to use" include qualifications that overseas engineers often cannot satisfy. Great engineers are human members of a team, and there's more to a team member than their LeetCode score (seriously?) and/or how many GitHub stars they've obtained. Just some examples off the top of my head: If you're building products to target US-based consumers, you don't need to provide as much contextual information to a US-based engineer. They will have a stronger intuitive understanding of the product, and there's a better chance that they'll know when it's appropriate to push back and question something. There's a reduced cognitive load in communicating with them. And of course, there's a better chance you're going to enjoy spending hours working with them.
- masterof0 5y ago
  > Great engineers are human members of a team, and there's more to a team member than their LeetCode score (seriously?) and/or how many GitHub stars they've obtained. I was referring to performance metrics in general, I didn't said those were the ones to take into account. I have definitely seen people here in HN referring to github stars, stackoverflow points, etc... as some sort of badge of honor. Also I find your answer pretty condescending towards folks overseas, although that's your opinion. In my team at Google, we have people from all over the world, and they are amazing. Don't see how they don't have the "required qualifications" you are referring to.
  - hnfong 5y ago
    It really depends on how much influence the engineer has over the final product, and whether it's intended to be marketed locally or globally. The GP's concerns is probably more relevant in small-ish teams developing a US-centric product. I wouldn't say it's an overarching concern that would justify turning away overseas (disclaimer: not located in US myself) talent, but can't say he's totally wrong in specific contexts..
  - sebular 5y ago
    My apologies. Your anecdotal experiences on a random team at Google clearly prove that anyone who hires US-based engineers at market rates is making a giant financial blunder. Also it wasn’t even slightly condescending of you to declare that US-based engineers are overpaid and ask HN for validation. It was just a brave stance taken by a bold intellectual who knows better than everyone else.
babesh 5y ago
I would estimate that well over half of Silicon Valley engineers are foreign born. If you add the non local US engineers, you are probably at over 90%. Those equally or more qualified overseas people working for little were in short supply. Why would they work for you for pennies when they could move to Silicon Valley, make tons more, and have potential for much, much more? With remote work, what makes you think that the market will be inefficient? The overseas equally or more qualified will demand more money and look for more opportunities. These companies that adjust pay based on location remind me of the wage fixing scheme led by Steve Jobs. Once Mark Zuckerberg refused to play along, compensation exploded. Companies that pay the best for remote workers will have their pick of the best.
- masterof0 5y ago
  > Why would they work for you for pennies when they could move to Silicon Valley, make tons more, and have potential for much, much more? Who says all talented engineers overseas can come to the US? There is a huge amount of QA companies in Ukraine that contract their service to the west, for example, can they come to the US? I doubt it. Overseas workers don't get the chance to make demands, US companies have leverage over them. Because there are way more talented engineers than high paying jobs. I have you seen how much people get paid in toptal, and other online contractor companies?
  - babesh 5y ago
    I am saying that the US was already playing the pick the cream of the crop game. It was playing it in two ways. First it identified obvious talent (math Olympiads, etc...). Second, the people who were the most driven got to Silicon Valley by any means necessary, showing tremendous grit. Examples: former boss's family got out of Russia, had guns pointed at them on the way to the airport coworker who got an H1-B, was desperate to get out of Russia, we found him because a product he was working on was exceptional several coworkers from other countries that were math or computer science olympiads btw these people end up in American colleges as undergrads or grads
  - babesh 5y ago
    Also, there/are were other tech centers that proved just as if not more attractive than Silicon Valley. Over 10 years ago, I had a coworker who remarked that all her classmates who stayed in China had become rich. She said that it was because it was an open field. All you had to do was take a proven American concept and apply it to China. Since there was no existing infrastructure or competition, you had the whole market to yourself. This wasn't just applicable to tech. People were doing things like opening coffee shops (queue the Luckin Coffee fraud 10 years later). Also, look at Spotify, JetBrains, WhatsApp, and Shopify.
ianmcgowan 5y ago
Many big companies do exactly that, and have done since long before Covid. I work with IT dev, support, and QA groups in India and the Philippines and it definitely can be made to work. There are the usual frustrations though, mostly around timezones and some cultural differences.
cblconfederate 5y ago
Are the wages of US tech workers skyrocketing because they switch jobs often? If so, remote workers can switch even faster. The most capable workers had already emigrated to US, so the question is, has the pool of workers expanded more than the pool of competitive jobs?
- masterof0 5y ago
  > The most capable workers had already emigrated to US This is insanely wrong. What makes you think that?
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    i dont see evidence of the contrary
908B64B197 5y ago
> when they can get a team overseas equally or even more qualified (whatever metrics you prefer to use: leetcode count, school ranking, GitHub stars, etc...) for the same amount of money or less? If they could, they would [0]. [0] https://restofworld.org/2020/india-engineering-degree/ https://restofworld.org/2020/india-engineering-degree/

trhway 5y ago

No. Companies able to manage additional offshore complexity produce enough per engineer to not care for the savings, and the effort required to deal with that complexity can in many cases be more productively spent on growing revenues. Such companies go offshore for additional talent, not savings.

busterarm 5y ago
^ This. Engineering needs product management. This isn't cheap or easy to do when you're offshoring for cost.

foobiekr 5y ago

Time zone. For whatever reason, and not for lack of looking, there aren't really development ecosystems like India/Pakistan/Estonia/Slovakia/... in south and central america.

elboru 5y ago
I’m a developer located in Latin America, I’ve worked for several clients and I know tons of companies that outsource work from here. What do you think is missing? I sincerely would like to know the perception from the other side.
- foobiekr 5y ago
  Sorry for the delay. I would say it's a variety of things. One, a lot of what makes India and Pakistan work, or Slovakia, are that there are class natives who can navigate the vetting process. This is huge and there are tons of Indians or Chinese in the valley who can fill this role but who are themselves demonstrated top-tier talent, not just people selling outsourced teams of unknown quality. Second, English. English is simply an absolute requirement and one of the things that absolutely kills non-US teams is a lack of English skills. Chinese teams have a lot of problems here and it gets even worse elsewhere. Eastern European teams (Poland, Estonia, Solvakia, ...) tend to have competent technical leads (not salesguys) with solid english skills even if the average is zero. I deal with a ton of people who have marginal English skills, but there's a very steep ramp between Bangalore, Chennai, ... and then other options. Third, and importantly, the populations are large enough that they can provide outsourced work at scale - I'm not talking huge numbers, I'm talking managing a team size of 30-40 people even with departures, etc. Fourth, there's an honest question of demonstrated competence (or demonstrated good-enough mediocrity, more often than not). Fifth, there's work culture. I know Indian, Chinese, and eastern european work culture. I know what to expect and there's basically been a selection process at work selecting outsourcing destinations based on what actually works. I'm probably starting something in a few months. I'd much rather outsource to a common time zone with Pacific or at least eastern time. I wish I could find a way.
  - elboru 5y ago
    Thank you for taking the time to answer. It’s insightful to get to know the perspective from the other side. If it helps, I can recommend you to take a look at https://nearsoft.com/ https://nearsoft.com/ it’s a Mexican company, I personally know very talented people working there. They have high standards during interviews, they seem to really care about who they hire (disclaimer, I don’t work there). Also, even though Costa Rica is a small country they have an interesting growing IT industry, if you haven’t already, you should check it out. I’ve met several great Costa Rican developers. I hope you find what you’re looking for! :)

masterof0 5y ago

Makes sense.

subpixel 5y ago

I believe it will, and what Google has done, by adjusting (down) remote salaries, essentially hands managers at lesser companies an argument-ending example. There will be exceptions, especially among the most skilled and experienced HN readers. But I am on calls all day with engineers and managers whose salaries may vary by six figures depending largely on their location. When the results of paying far less are acceptable to companies, companies will pay less and less.

ameixaseca 5y ago

Yes but you also have a number of other issues to take into account: timezones, language barriers, cultural differences, ability of an engineer to get on a plane/car/train/boat and meet face-to-face in a reasonable amount of time, and so forth. Remote work within borders is one thing, but remote work from different continents is an entirely different beast. Not to mention the sheer difference in labour-related laws and conventions across the world and how little recourse you may have if - let's say - your employee decides to take your source code with them and resell. Or take the idea and start a product themselves. Or anything similar that you could very easily sue locally. How much trouble would you go to sue? Translate and certificate every document? Comply with local laws regarding representation? Can you even sue? You may think these are extreme examples, and yes it all tends to work out in general, but even with local employees people sometimes get burn so you need to take these into account when jumping into something uncertain. It's becoming more common for sure but there are risks and they are not null.

frozenport 5y ago

Many small companies lack the ability to organize these kinds of efforts, as hiring is usually local or word of mouth. Large companies like NVIDIA/Intel/Microsoft have tried to do it with mixed results. In particular your savings rarely exceed 50%.

justaguy88 5y ago

If they can put them in US-compatible timezone, sure. But coordinating teams across anything more than a 4-ish hour difference is a total pain

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

> when they can get a team overseas equally or even more qualified (whatever metrics you prefer to use: leetcode count, school ranking, GitHub stars, etc...) Those people are already in demand and oversubscribed, so the US-based engineers are still in demand. Yes, companies would love to pay less, but at the high end it is already a world market for talent.

sebular 5y ago

The simple answer is that "whatever metrics you prefer to use" include qualifications that overseas engineers often cannot satisfy. Great engineers are human members of a team, and there's more to a team member than their LeetCode score (seriously?) and/or how many GitHub stars they've obtained. Just some examples off the top of my head: If you're building products to target US-based consumers, you don't need to provide as much contextual information to a US-based engineer. They will have a stronger intuitive understanding of the product, and there's a better chance that they'll know when it's appropriate to push back and question something. There's a reduced cognitive load in communicating with them. And of course, there's a better chance you're going to enjoy spending hours working with them.

masterof0 5y ago
> Great engineers are human members of a team, and there's more to a team member than their LeetCode score (seriously?) and/or how many GitHub stars they've obtained. I was referring to performance metrics in general, I didn't said those were the ones to take into account. I have definitely seen people here in HN referring to github stars, stackoverflow points, etc... as some sort of badge of honor. Also I find your answer pretty condescending towards folks overseas, although that's your opinion. In my team at Google, we have people from all over the world, and they are amazing. Don't see how they don't have the "required qualifications" you are referring to.
- hnfong 5y ago
  It really depends on how much influence the engineer has over the final product, and whether it's intended to be marketed locally or globally. The GP's concerns is probably more relevant in small-ish teams developing a US-centric product. I wouldn't say it's an overarching concern that would justify turning away overseas (disclaimer: not located in US myself) talent, but can't say he's totally wrong in specific contexts..
- sebular 5y ago
  My apologies. Your anecdotal experiences on a random team at Google clearly prove that anyone who hires US-based engineers at market rates is making a giant financial blunder. Also it wasn’t even slightly condescending of you to declare that US-based engineers are overpaid and ask HN for validation. It was just a brave stance taken by a bold intellectual who knows better than everyone else.

babesh 5y ago

I would estimate that well over half of Silicon Valley engineers are foreign born. If you add the non local US engineers, you are probably at over 90%. Those equally or more qualified overseas people working for little were in short supply. Why would they work for you for pennies when they could move to Silicon Valley, make tons more, and have potential for much, much more? With remote work, what makes you think that the market will be inefficient? The overseas equally or more qualified will demand more money and look for more opportunities. These companies that adjust pay based on location remind me of the wage fixing scheme led by Steve Jobs. Once Mark Zuckerberg refused to play along, compensation exploded. Companies that pay the best for remote workers will have their pick of the best.

masterof0 5y ago
> Why would they work for you for pennies when they could move to Silicon Valley, make tons more, and have potential for much, much more? Who says all talented engineers overseas can come to the US? There is a huge amount of QA companies in Ukraine that contract their service to the west, for example, can they come to the US? I doubt it. Overseas workers don't get the chance to make demands, US companies have leverage over them. Because there are way more talented engineers than high paying jobs. I have you seen how much people get paid in toptal, and other online contractor companies?
- babesh 5y ago
  I am saying that the US was already playing the pick the cream of the crop game. It was playing it in two ways. First it identified obvious talent (math Olympiads, etc...). Second, the people who were the most driven got to Silicon Valley by any means necessary, showing tremendous grit. Examples: former boss's family got out of Russia, had guns pointed at them on the way to the airport coworker who got an H1-B, was desperate to get out of Russia, we found him because a product he was working on was exceptional several coworkers from other countries that were math or computer science olympiads btw these people end up in American colleges as undergrads or grads
- babesh 5y ago
  Also, there/are were other tech centers that proved just as if not more attractive than Silicon Valley. Over 10 years ago, I had a coworker who remarked that all her classmates who stayed in China had become rich. She said that it was because it was an open field. All you had to do was take a proven American concept and apply it to China. Since there was no existing infrastructure or competition, you had the whole market to yourself. This wasn't just applicable to tech. People were doing things like opening coffee shops (queue the Luckin Coffee fraud 10 years later). Also, look at Spotify, JetBrains, WhatsApp, and Shopify.

ianmcgowan 5y ago

Many big companies do exactly that, and have done since long before Covid. I work with IT dev, support, and QA groups in India and the Philippines and it definitely can be made to work. There are the usual frustrations though, mostly around timezones and some cultural differences.

cblconfederate 5y ago

Are the wages of US tech workers skyrocketing because they switch jobs often? If so, remote workers can switch even faster. The most capable workers had already emigrated to US, so the question is, has the pool of workers expanded more than the pool of competitive jobs?

masterof0 5y ago
> The most capable workers had already emigrated to US This is insanely wrong. What makes you think that?
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  i dont see evidence of the contrary

908B64B197 5y ago

> when they can get a team overseas equally or even more qualified (whatever metrics you prefer to use: leetcode count, school ranking, GitHub stars, etc...) for the same amount of money or less? If they could, they would [0]. [0] https://restofworld.org/2020/india-engineering-degree/ https://restofworld.org/2020/india-engineering-degree/