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Hear me out. Lets say a 3rd world country, an average salary of SWE is $1000/month. An average salary of a family doctor is $3000/month. If one day the US/Can

Hear me out. Lets say a 3rd world country, an average salary of SWE is $1000/month. An average salary of a family doctor is $3000/month. If one day the US/Canada/EU and other 1st world countries manage to finally crack the tax code by outsourcing their work. I can see some things happening: - SWEs in 1st world countries no longer price-competitive, and they have to either move to 3rd world countries or change career - People in 3rd world countries no longer want to pursue career as a doctor (and other similarly needed professions like law) (expensive, time consuming, etc) and just pursue SWE jobs Would this result in people in 3rd world countries have less and less doctors, and people in 3rd world countries would have to go to the 1st world in order to be treated. This is just a dumb shower thought that I came up with when reading about this. But I wonder what would the implication be for 3rd world countries if we as 1st world manage to crack the outsourcing/tax code. FWIW, I am a citizen of 3rd world country, now currently reside in the most expensive cities in the US. I also have a familial tie with another 1st world country in Asia that is cheaper than the US. I work as an SWE. I think people like me have the ability to earn US salary and live in 3rd world country, but I'm not sure how other non dual/triple residence would benefit in this type of arrangement.

Maakuth 4y ago
Outsourcing SWE work to India and Eastern Europe is already very, very common. I don't know if that has had an impact on the availability of doctors, but in Poland, Ukraine or Belarus you'll find most of the IT workers work in outsourcing. The solution for the tax issue is to either have a subsidiary in the low-cost country or buy the outsourcing as a service from a company that's specialized in this arrangement. I'm in Europe so this is my point of view for the outsourcing recipient countries. I suppose US companies might outsource to Latin America for better time zone overlap.
- bakuninsbart 4y ago
  It is just anecdotal, but friends and colleagues who did successfully outsource part of their development (and it often also fails), didn't reduce their team sizes in western Europe. On the contrary, it usually meant they were more competitive due to lower costs and could grow both offices in size. Demand for IT around here still seems very far from topping out, and for every team you have outsourced you also need some support, management and engineering at home.
  - desas 4y ago
    It goes different ways in different places, it's very company context dependent. My anecdote is that the onshore team was reduced via attrition while the offshore team grew significantly. There was a management imposed maximum onshore:offshore ratio, eventually the onshore dev team started receiving a very small headcount increase again.
  - Maakuth 4y ago
    I think it is very hard to measure the total impact of outsourcing. In single company's case, it might seem that competitiveness increases when you start to outsource, but when everyone is onboard with it, it fades into background. I do believe it could make sense for many things, but the cost function is definitely more complex than changing from expensive coders to cheap ones.
_fat_santa 4y ago
This has been a talking point for at least 10 years. Not necessarily the lack of doctors but 3rd world developers out competing domestic ones. I don’t think it will ever truly happen. Not due to the skill of the workers overseas, but all the other intangible stuff around running a business. Many places I’ve worked at have outsourced work to overseas, but it’s always in a supplementary fashion. I’ve heard of places that went all in but unless you have superb engineering management onshore, it usually ends very badly.
- jstummbillig 4y ago
  Assuming that something that sounds entirely plausible and has gigantic upsides for one of two engaging parties with increasingly less downsides for the other party will "never truly happen" has historically been really bad policy when predicting the future. "Outsourcing" is obviously happening, but the word itself is already a big red flag for last generation think. When it comes to produce, already, no one is truly talking about "outsourcing" to China anymore. That's just where chunk of global production, from highest to lowest quality, happens now. It would be terribly arrogant to assume that, eventually, this is not going to be the case in the highly sophisticated SWE machinery when quite clearly the gap in innovation and execution is shrinking, and rapidly so.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I think off-shoring (different geo, same company) is easier and more likely to succeed than out-sourcing (to a different company) for software or product development. Having employees of your company (or a wholly-owned subsidiary) working alongside other local employees is much easier than outsourcing the work to another company in another location. In the latter case, your interests are less aligned than if you were all working for the same company. It still takes excellent management in both/all geographies and it’s a different style of work, with communications across geos being slower, harder, and more lossy than an in-person whiteboard chat that you might have come to rely on.
donkeyd 4y ago
> SWEs in 1st world countries no longer price-competitive, and they have to either move to 3rd world countries or change career In the Netherlands we have a lot of outsourcing to India and a lot of Indian IT workers moving here. We still have many IT job openings and some companies have been moving development back from India, because cultural differences and language barriers some times cost more than the added salary of a local employee. > People in 3rd world countries no longer want to pursue career as a doctor (and other similarly needed professions like law) (expensive, time consuming, etc) and just pursue SWE jobs This assumes that people pursue career paths only for the money. Of the doctors I know, most people did not pick that job for the money, they did it because they wanted to be a doctor. Then there's the fact that people have different interests and natural skill sets. A family member of mine, for example, is a doctor and asked me: "do you really like computers". She would not become an SWE even if it paid double.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  That's the rationalization given. But expressed preferences definitely does show that salary drives large numbers of people into professions. With the aging boom, lots of people went into nursing with the expectation of easier money. Tech salaries have sucked oxygen out of the room for people going into maths, physics, and other engineering professions just like FinTech salaries have also sucked talent out of those professions. This has knock-on effects. Worst case there's fewer doctors, their salaries increase (steady demand + shrinking supply), and the quality of care increases as does wait times and access to care for the broader population worsens. Realistic case, I don't know if it'll impact doctors numbers as the field isn't particularly related - the overlap of people who are equally considering between SW and medicine is small. Maybe in the longer term it has an impact on students making career choices in high school? Hard to say.

Maakuth 4y ago

Outsourcing SWE work to India and Eastern Europe is already very, very common. I don't know if that has had an impact on the availability of doctors, but in Poland, Ukraine or Belarus you'll find most of the IT workers work in outsourcing. The solution for the tax issue is to either have a subsidiary in the low-cost country or buy the outsourcing as a service from a company that's specialized in this arrangement. I'm in Europe so this is my point of view for the outsourcing recipient countries. I suppose US companies might outsource to Latin America for better time zone overlap.

bakuninsbart 4y ago
It is just anecdotal, but friends and colleagues who did successfully outsource part of their development (and it often also fails), didn't reduce their team sizes in western Europe. On the contrary, it usually meant they were more competitive due to lower costs and could grow both offices in size. Demand for IT around here still seems very far from topping out, and for every team you have outsourced you also need some support, management and engineering at home.
- desas 4y ago
  It goes different ways in different places, it's very company context dependent. My anecdote is that the onshore team was reduced via attrition while the offshore team grew significantly. There was a management imposed maximum onshore:offshore ratio, eventually the onshore dev team started receiving a very small headcount increase again.
- Maakuth 4y ago
  I think it is very hard to measure the total impact of outsourcing. In single company's case, it might seem that competitiveness increases when you start to outsource, but when everyone is onboard with it, it fades into background. I do believe it could make sense for many things, but the cost function is definitely more complex than changing from expensive coders to cheap ones.

_fat_santa 4y ago

This has been a talking point for at least 10 years. Not necessarily the lack of doctors but 3rd world developers out competing domestic ones. I don’t think it will ever truly happen. Not due to the skill of the workers overseas, but all the other intangible stuff around running a business. Many places I’ve worked at have outsourced work to overseas, but it’s always in a supplementary fashion. I’ve heard of places that went all in but unless you have superb engineering management onshore, it usually ends very badly.

jstummbillig 4y ago
Assuming that something that sounds entirely plausible and has gigantic upsides for one of two engaging parties with increasingly less downsides for the other party will "never truly happen" has historically been really bad policy when predicting the future. "Outsourcing" is obviously happening, but the word itself is already a big red flag for last generation think. When it comes to produce, already, no one is truly talking about "outsourcing" to China anymore. That's just where chunk of global production, from highest to lowest quality, happens now. It would be terribly arrogant to assume that, eventually, this is not going to be the case in the highly sophisticated SWE machinery when quite clearly the gap in innovation and execution is shrinking, and rapidly so.
sokoloff 4y ago
I think off-shoring (different geo, same company) is easier and more likely to succeed than out-sourcing (to a different company) for software or product development. Having employees of your company (or a wholly-owned subsidiary) working alongside other local employees is much easier than outsourcing the work to another company in another location. In the latter case, your interests are less aligned than if you were all working for the same company. It still takes excellent management in both/all geographies and it’s a different style of work, with communications across geos being slower, harder, and more lossy than an in-person whiteboard chat that you might have come to rely on.

donkeyd 4y ago

> SWEs in 1st world countries no longer price-competitive, and they have to either move to 3rd world countries or change career In the Netherlands we have a lot of outsourcing to India and a lot of Indian IT workers moving here. We still have many IT job openings and some companies have been moving development back from India, because cultural differences and language barriers some times cost more than the added salary of a local employee. > People in 3rd world countries no longer want to pursue career as a doctor (and other similarly needed professions like law) (expensive, time consuming, etc) and just pursue SWE jobs This assumes that people pursue career paths only for the money. Of the doctors I know, most people did not pick that job for the money, they did it because they wanted to be a doctor. Then there's the fact that people have different interests and natural skill sets. A family member of mine, for example, is a doctor and asked me: "do you really like computers". She would not become an SWE even if it paid double.

vlovich123 4y ago
That's the rationalization given. But expressed preferences definitely does show that salary drives large numbers of people into professions. With the aging boom, lots of people went into nursing with the expectation of easier money. Tech salaries have sucked oxygen out of the room for people going into maths, physics, and other engineering professions just like FinTech salaries have also sucked talent out of those professions. This has knock-on effects. Worst case there's fewer doctors, their salaries increase (steady demand + shrinking supply), and the quality of care increases as does wait times and access to care for the broader population worsens. Realistic case, I don't know if it'll impact doctors numbers as the field isn't particularly related - the overlap of people who are equally considering between SW and medicine is small. Maybe in the longer term it has an impact on students making career choices in high school? Hard to say.