1) Absolutely - I have been working for the US companies as an FTE (remotely, but C2C, essentially a contractor), and sometimes the hours do make an issue. It'

1) Absolutely - I have been working for the US companies as an FTE (remotely, but C2C, essentially a contractor), and sometimes the hours do make an issue. It's a 9 hour difference with the West Coast for me, but Central / Eastern works well, if the expectations are properly set. 2) Spot on - Agile does not work well in such environment, I have seen it first hand twice. I feel that with senior/staff level devs, you can expect and should get higher level of autonomy and less hand-holding, so in a solid project oriented company, I do feel that fewer "business hours overlap" would impact much. I do feel that at least 3, preferably more hours should be reserved for meetings / overlap. 3) I'd argue about that one, haha. I have been on-call troubleshooting production at 2-3am my time, not once, but multiple times. For a great employer, with proper compensation and benefits, you'd be surprised what devs from this area would do! 4) YES! Companies are greedy. However, they do have to pay pension/insurance on the hourly rate they give to the dev, think 50-60%, but they don't want to give away their cut at all, it seems to be non-negotiable flat fee, which is deal breaking. Another point is that Microsoft and other big brand outsourcing names are coming to EE and stealing away the workforce. Disclaimer - I work as a senior/staff level dev with high base salary and equity, so my experience may be a bit skewed.