6 ms·

First one doesn’t work anymore with remote being so common they demand the same wages as everywhere else.

urthor 5y ago
It works. These days the secret is you have to hire the good South Americans. Exploit the fact corporate America hasn't caught on to routing contracts through Upwork et al. Then don't get greedy, keep the TCE delta below 20%, so they stay more than 9 months. You can take your pick of the finest FOSS contributors Guinea and Paraguay have to offer. -------------------------------------------------------- Startup engineering management is so simple. Buy a copy of Mythical Man Month. Read it, read it again. Then re-read chapter 3. Get two of the best, your Captain and your Copilot. Encourage them to hire a pimply faced minion to edit the config files so they feel important, and so you avoid single point of dependency. These days, get someone else who lives in Estonia/Ukraine/Sri Lanka for follow the sun support. If you need more than two engineers + 2 assistants, you should have hired smarter engineers. ------------------------------------------------------- Your secret path to success with international hiring is to avoid any country you know the name of. Don't think you're thinking out of the box hiring from Brazil/Israel. Hunt down a decent dev from Ghana or Georgia. If my Slack/Discord buddies are anything to go by, there's an extraordinary amount of gems out there who've made the choice to raise their kids in their home countries. There's good talent in Thailand as well. RIP my friend the Thai data/cloud principal eng banking 14k USD.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  > If you need more than two engineers + 2 assistants, you should have hired smarter engineers. Oh, I half thought you were serious until this point. I still don't get the joke though.
  - fsloth 5y ago
    Depends on the product what you actually need, but I've personally watched more than one successfull software product launched with a more or less this resourcing. Not exactly this recipe but very much in the ballpark. The assistants aren't assistants - you hire them with minimum pressure, but try still to find the most talented junior you can find.
    - urthor 5y ago
      I'm sure you can be elastic with the mids depending on how much AWS there is to configure or some-such. 2 juniors in a startup is a bit, probably not the right thing. You'll run out of junior work surely? The "two good ones plus exactly one junior to make them feel important, and to keep the show on the road for 2 weeks in case they both quit simultaneously" formula is pretty solid.
      - fsloth 5y ago
        To be specific, my experience was from non-web software. I would consider "junior" here not as a person in non-critical role who cannot function as an individual contributor, but as a solid candidate that lacks industry experience but can be at the moment hiring be expected to quite fast grow into the role of a solid IC. I.e to use a bit too stereotypical characterization - not a "stablehand" but a "journeyman apprentice". At the moment of hiring you don't count on it that they can deliver (but guess and hope), whereas the seniors will have shipped products under their belt.
        urthor 5y ago
        Oh well that's fine. My brain just operates very strictly as: Junior = apprentice, first job or similar. Mid = journeyman, "worked another job before". Independent, trusted to be delegated to for specific things, but doesn't quite have a personal brand. Senior = Master. Proven track record, proven reputation of delivering, capable of leadership inside a technical project. Has and maintains a reputation as someone you can trust. Principal = Mentor to seniors. Ofc there are shades of grey between junior and mid, because junior-ship takes like 2-3 years to grow out of. The list of work able to be delegated to someone at the start is not all that large in many cases.
  - urthor 5y ago
    Well, I mean I don't want to judge all startups. In fact if you take any of this offhand advice as gospel, well I wouldn't. Maybe I should have scattered "probably" and "often" about the place. 1: ------------------------------------------------------------ When you read the book, ole Fred is not a fan of large engineering units. Forget two pizzas (Bezos is from New York, two pizzas for him is ~10 people). Fred's view is actually: 1x captain/tech lead, 1x co-pilot, 1x ops guy equivalent, 1x business analyst equivalent who can be sent to meetings (he worked for IBM). (And then two secretaries. And an copy editor for the documentation, because no internet. No internet! The documentation must be written! The lead developer needs to follow my favorite advice of all time: Can't write? Imitate Hemingway. And a full-time librarian for the punch cards. And a full-time employee just to maintain the minicomputer that was your debugger. Because hey, the book was written in 1975. The internet doesn't exist, email doesn't exist, the engineers almost certainly can't touch type. And anyone without an attractive female secretary was nobody. The pimply faced youth's job as config wunderkid and unofficial court jester fills most of those roles these days) 2: ------------------------------------------------------------ If you think of all the amazing software that has been made by one person... How many people do you need to make amazing software? What are you even making?
    - JonChesterfield 5y ago
      Can you think of any amazing software written by one person who was working for another person who owned the company that owned said software? I sympathize with the argument that one engineer can be sufficient but am doubtful about them being an employee as opposed to founder.
      - urthor 5y ago
        That's exactly what happened with Twitter. It was at a company named Odeo. But yes, I think you can have two high quality employees make good software? I mean they're employees, you're going to give them marching orders to do something presumably.
        jokethrowaway 5y ago
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    There is no joke, that's correct. You won't need more than 2 engineers at the beginning for 99% of the startups. Almost nobody is making anything technologically significant - and if they do they raise millions and act like a disorganised mid company. In order to do your typical backend + frontend work you won't need much more, unless your developers can't code.
- rventure 5y ago
  TCE Delta?
  - mkl 5y ago
    Total Cost of Employment: https://support.remote.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406888078733-What-is-total-cost-of-employment-TCE-and-how-do-you-calculate-it- https://support.remote.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406888078733-W... "delta" = difference.
- sebastiangraef 5y ago
  "There's good talent in Thailand as well. RIP my friend the Thai data/cloud principal eng banking 14k USD." Don't know from when this is but tech salaries in Thailand are much higher and it's hard to find people. This would be fresh grad level at most.
  - urthor 5y ago
    Oh, I could be wrong on the number. It's extremely low though, certainly in the teens. As a person they're very opinionated about not working for a "product company." And have worked at the same company their entire tech career after bailing out of some traditional engineering discipline (I think 6 yoe?). Sweetest person ever. Never really followed up that conversation when I asked them if they were considering remote.
  - konschubert 5y ago
    It's heartening to hear how remote work is helping to even out global wealth inequality.
    - sebastiangraef 5y ago
      Plays some kind of role for sure but there are barely any local developer who work for a company abroad like it's common in Eastern Europe or other places (not counting foreign remote workers).
    - jacobmischka 5y ago
      I wouldn't call "hire people from countries with low wages so you can pay them literally 1/10 of the US equivalent haha" heartening.
      - konschubert 5y ago
        What I am taking from your above thread is that what you are describing is no longer possible - because competition is pushing salaries up.
      - pettycashstash2 5y ago
- lsferreira42 5y ago
  I can confirm the use of south american engineers, as a Brazilian myself me and my IT friends receive a LOT of contact from north american companies
  - urthor 5y ago
    Brazil is the beachhead in many ways. Huge market, easier to sort out all the employment stuff because it's a path that's much more well trodden. If you still want to get an edge these days, you have to be prepared to go to the global platforms that give you access to devs in the really obscure places. Nobody is hiring from Trinidad and Tobago because of the legal barrier to entry. But you can if you are clever with Upwork and similar.
- laurent92 5y ago
  If the code of the app is made by remote people in remote countries, how do you sell software to the US government? What do you answer to “What is the nationality of your developers?”?
  - urthor 5y ago
    I imagine the answer to that is, I've simply never heard of the US government buying from a software vendor with less than 500 employees. Surely it never happens?
    - smus 5y ago
      You aren't looking too hard then, 2/3 start ups I worked for less than 50 ppl sell to the gov
      - urthor 5y ago
        Ah. The more you know I guess. I assumed they went in for platinum enterprise grade support contracts and the like, only. Or else they got contractors to make them software that they owned.
    - hermitcrab 5y ago
      I know 1-man-band software companies that sell plenty of software to the US military.
    - laurent92 5y ago
      I’m French and ahem, I’m selling to both US, Australian and Russian government entities. As in, .gov email addresses. When I fill in forms, it’s often quite simple since we’re all French developers under regular employment contracts.
- axiosgunnar 5y ago
  > Ukraine Warning, they might need increased PTOs starting tomorrow.

It works. These days the secret is you have to hire the good South Americans. Exploit the fact corporate America hasn't caught on to routing contracts through Upwork et al. Then don't get greedy, keep the TCE delta below 20%, so they stay more than 9 months. You can take your pick of the finest FOSS contributors Guinea and Paraguay have to offer. -------------------------------------------------------- Startup engineering management is so simple. Buy a copy of Mythical Man Month. Read it, read it again. Then re-read chapter 3. Get two of the best, your Captain and your Copilot. Encourage them to hire a pimply faced minion to edit the config files so they feel important, and so you avoid single point of dependency. These days, get someone else who lives in Estonia/Ukraine/Sri Lanka for follow the sun support. If you need more than two engineers + 2 assistants, you should have hired smarter engineers. ------------------------------------------------------- Your secret path to success with international hiring is to avoid any country you know the name of. Don't think you're thinking out of the box hiring from Brazil/Israel. Hunt down a decent dev from Ghana or Georgia. If my Slack/Discord buddies are anything to go by, there's an extraordinary amount of gems out there who've made the choice to raise their kids in their home countries. There's good talent in Thailand as well. RIP my friend the Thai data/cloud principal eng banking 14k USD.

throwawaylinux 5y ago
> If you need more than two engineers + 2 assistants, you should have hired smarter engineers. Oh, I half thought you were serious until this point. I still don't get the joke though.
- fsloth 5y ago
  Depends on the product what you actually need, but I've personally watched more than one successfull software product launched with a more or less this resourcing. Not exactly this recipe but very much in the ballpark. The assistants aren't assistants - you hire them with minimum pressure, but try still to find the most talented junior you can find.
  - urthor 5y ago
    I'm sure you can be elastic with the mids depending on how much AWS there is to configure or some-such. 2 juniors in a startup is a bit, probably not the right thing. You'll run out of junior work surely? The "two good ones plus exactly one junior to make them feel important, and to keep the show on the road for 2 weeks in case they both quit simultaneously" formula is pretty solid.
    - fsloth 5y ago
      To be specific, my experience was from non-web software. I would consider "junior" here not as a person in non-critical role who cannot function as an individual contributor, but as a solid candidate that lacks industry experience but can be at the moment hiring be expected to quite fast grow into the role of a solid IC. I.e to use a bit too stereotypical characterization - not a "stablehand" but a "journeyman apprentice". At the moment of hiring you don't count on it that they can deliver (but guess and hope), whereas the seniors will have shipped products under their belt.
      - urthor 5y ago
        Oh well that's fine. My brain just operates very strictly as: Junior = apprentice, first job or similar. Mid = journeyman, "worked another job before". Independent, trusted to be delegated to for specific things, but doesn't quite have a personal brand. Senior = Master. Proven track record, proven reputation of delivering, capable of leadership inside a technical project. Has and maintains a reputation as someone you can trust. Principal = Mentor to seniors. Ofc there are shades of grey between junior and mid, because junior-ship takes like 2-3 years to grow out of. The list of work able to be delegated to someone at the start is not all that large in many cases.
- urthor 5y ago
  Well, I mean I don't want to judge all startups. In fact if you take any of this offhand advice as gospel, well I wouldn't. Maybe I should have scattered "probably" and "often" about the place. 1: ------------------------------------------------------------ When you read the book, ole Fred is not a fan of large engineering units. Forget two pizzas (Bezos is from New York, two pizzas for him is ~10 people). Fred's view is actually: 1x captain/tech lead, 1x co-pilot, 1x ops guy equivalent, 1x business analyst equivalent who can be sent to meetings (he worked for IBM). (And then two secretaries. And an copy editor for the documentation, because no internet. No internet! The documentation must be written! The lead developer needs to follow my favorite advice of all time: Can't write? Imitate Hemingway. And a full-time librarian for the punch cards. And a full-time employee just to maintain the minicomputer that was your debugger. Because hey, the book was written in 1975. The internet doesn't exist, email doesn't exist, the engineers almost certainly can't touch type. And anyone without an attractive female secretary was nobody. The pimply faced youth's job as config wunderkid and unofficial court jester fills most of those roles these days) 2: ------------------------------------------------------------ If you think of all the amazing software that has been made by one person... How many people do you need to make amazing software? What are you even making?
  - JonChesterfield 5y ago
    Can you think of any amazing software written by one person who was working for another person who owned the company that owned said software? I sympathize with the argument that one engineer can be sufficient but am doubtful about them being an employee as opposed to founder.
    - urthor 5y ago
      That's exactly what happened with Twitter. It was at a company named Odeo. But yes, I think you can have two high quality employees make good software? I mean they're employees, you're going to give them marching orders to do something presumably.
      - jokethrowaway 5y ago
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  There is no joke, that's correct. You won't need more than 2 engineers at the beginning for 99% of the startups. Almost nobody is making anything technologically significant - and if they do they raise millions and act like a disorganised mid company. In order to do your typical backend + frontend work you won't need much more, unless your developers can't code.
rventure 5y ago
TCE Delta?
- mkl 5y ago
  Total Cost of Employment: https://support.remote.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406888078733-What-is-total-cost-of-employment-TCE-and-how-do-you-calculate-it- https://support.remote.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406888078733-W... "delta" = difference.
sebastiangraef 5y ago
"There's good talent in Thailand as well. RIP my friend the Thai data/cloud principal eng banking 14k USD." Don't know from when this is but tech salaries in Thailand are much higher and it's hard to find people. This would be fresh grad level at most.
- urthor 5y ago
  Oh, I could be wrong on the number. It's extremely low though, certainly in the teens. As a person they're very opinionated about not working for a "product company." And have worked at the same company their entire tech career after bailing out of some traditional engineering discipline (I think 6 yoe?). Sweetest person ever. Never really followed up that conversation when I asked them if they were considering remote.
- konschubert 5y ago
  It's heartening to hear how remote work is helping to even out global wealth inequality.
  - sebastiangraef 5y ago
    Plays some kind of role for sure but there are barely any local developer who work for a company abroad like it's common in Eastern Europe or other places (not counting foreign remote workers).
  - jacobmischka 5y ago
    I wouldn't call "hire people from countries with low wages so you can pay them literally 1/10 of the US equivalent haha" heartening.
    - konschubert 5y ago
      What I am taking from your above thread is that what you are describing is no longer possible - because competition is pushing salaries up.
    - pettycashstash2 5y ago
lsferreira42 5y ago
I can confirm the use of south american engineers, as a Brazilian myself me and my IT friends receive a LOT of contact from north american companies
- urthor 5y ago
  Brazil is the beachhead in many ways. Huge market, easier to sort out all the employment stuff because it's a path that's much more well trodden. If you still want to get an edge these days, you have to be prepared to go to the global platforms that give you access to devs in the really obscure places. Nobody is hiring from Trinidad and Tobago because of the legal barrier to entry. But you can if you are clever with Upwork and similar.
laurent92 5y ago
If the code of the app is made by remote people in remote countries, how do you sell software to the US government? What do you answer to “What is the nationality of your developers?”?
- urthor 5y ago
  I imagine the answer to that is, I've simply never heard of the US government buying from a software vendor with less than 500 employees. Surely it never happens?
  - smus 5y ago
    You aren't looking too hard then, 2/3 start ups I worked for less than 50 ppl sell to the gov
    - urthor 5y ago
      Ah. The more you know I guess. I assumed they went in for platinum enterprise grade support contracts and the like, only. Or else they got contractors to make them software that they owned.
  - hermitcrab 5y ago
    I know 1-man-band software companies that sell plenty of software to the US military.
  - laurent92 5y ago
    I’m French and ahem, I’m selling to both US, Australian and Russian government entities. As in, .gov email addresses. When I fill in forms, it’s often quite simple since we’re all French developers under regular employment contracts.
axiosgunnar 5y ago
> Ukraine Warning, they might need increased PTOs starting tomorrow.