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I personally find it strange how gleeful lots of US developers have been about remote work. It means our US salaries are going to be untenable and we'll be paid

I personally find it strange how gleeful lots of US developers have been about remote work. It means our US salaries are going to be untenable and we'll be paid like the rest of the world. Why pay a Silicon Valley salary when it's remote anyway and 1/4 the price to get someone from elsewhere?

Nasrudith 5y ago
We went through that with outsourcing already. There is something about businesses and their communications - don't listen to what they say they need - that is really what they want and are whining for. Instead look at their actions - they take measures to fufill their actual needs. We keep on seeing that scaremongering about "you taking advantage of remote work will be bad for your job oooooo!" but that doesn't make any sense. You forgoing its benefits won't make it not happen any more than riding a horse will stop people from using cars. Besides if they can why the hell aren't they already? The capability has long been there and they don't so much outsource to same order of magnitude. Given immigration to the US for work and it implies the other way around - they need to pay US level salaries to get the high quality employees with any level of remote reliability (recruiting is a rather messy and slapdash endeavor at best for judging and obtaining quality).
- initplus 5y ago
  Modern remote hiring is very different to the offshoring of old. Hiring individual skilled developers remote is very different from outsourcing an entire project to a consulting shop in India. Modern offshoring is a very different experience, and likely will have downward pressure on US wages.
  - Daishiman 5y ago
    I'm not really seeing it. Competent developers at this point are already working directly or indirectly for US companies that pay well. I don't know anyone who wants this kind of work who doesn't have it already.
jaegerpicker 5y ago
Because that is absolutely unlikely in the extreme. I've worked with and lead teams of outsourced non-US developers. It very often (not always but much more often) ends unfavorably compared to local-ish remote teams or local in office teams. Language barriers, culture barriers, infrastructure issues (quality of internet/phone, regional software restrictions, export restrictions, contract work vs regular employees, etc....) are too much to over come in the majority of cases. Software teams are almost always better run with small groups of highly skilled developers that can and want to work closely together. Think special ops vs regular infantry platoon. Outside of FaaNG not many companies are working on projects that require a large number of devs.
lancemurdock 5y ago
don't underestimate some of the problems the author listed here. Language barriers & timezone challenges will cause the roadmap to move so much slower that you've lost gains on saving that 3/4 price.
analognoise 5y ago
Good luck convincing people who "can do" the work to take 1/4th.
- tayo42 5y ago
  Yeah There's better jobs then programing for 50k a year. Why would I keep doing this then. I'll work a ski lift or something

Nasrudith 5y ago

We went through that with outsourcing already. There is something about businesses and their communications - don't listen to what they say they need - that is really what they want and are whining for. Instead look at their actions - they take measures to fufill their actual needs. We keep on seeing that scaremongering about "you taking advantage of remote work will be bad for your job oooooo!" but that doesn't make any sense. You forgoing its benefits won't make it not happen any more than riding a horse will stop people from using cars. Besides if they can why the hell aren't they already? The capability has long been there and they don't so much outsource to same order of magnitude. Given immigration to the US for work and it implies the other way around - they need to pay US level salaries to get the high quality employees with any level of remote reliability (recruiting is a rather messy and slapdash endeavor at best for judging and obtaining quality).

initplus 5y ago
Modern remote hiring is very different to the offshoring of old. Hiring individual skilled developers remote is very different from outsourcing an entire project to a consulting shop in India. Modern offshoring is a very different experience, and likely will have downward pressure on US wages.
- Daishiman 5y ago
  I'm not really seeing it. Competent developers at this point are already working directly or indirectly for US companies that pay well. I don't know anyone who wants this kind of work who doesn't have it already.

jaegerpicker 5y ago

Because that is absolutely unlikely in the extreme. I've worked with and lead teams of outsourced non-US developers. It very often (not always but much more often) ends unfavorably compared to local-ish remote teams or local in office teams. Language barriers, culture barriers, infrastructure issues (quality of internet/phone, regional software restrictions, export restrictions, contract work vs regular employees, etc....) are too much to over come in the majority of cases. Software teams are almost always better run with small groups of highly skilled developers that can and want to work closely together. Think special ops vs regular infantry platoon. Outside of FaaNG not many companies are working on projects that require a large number of devs.

lancemurdock 5y ago

don't underestimate some of the problems the author listed here. Language barriers & timezone challenges will cause the roadmap to move so much slower that you've lost gains on saving that 3/4 price.

analognoise 5y ago

Good luck convincing people who "can do" the work to take 1/4th.

tayo42 5y ago
Yeah There's better jobs then programing for 50k a year. Why would I keep doing this then. I'll work a ski lift or something