3 ms·

No better or worse than before, IMO. It's a pendulum that keeps swinging back and forth. Cost cutting leads to outsourcing, which leads to reduced quality an

No better or worse than before, IMO. It's a pendulum that keeps swinging back and forth. Cost cutting leads to outsourcing, which leads to reduced quality and or output, which leads to people coming in to grow and revamp, which comes back to hiring local, rinse and repeat. I'm mostly convinced great and established software engineers around the world already do well for themselves. If you're cheaping out on salaries, here or abroad, you're likely not getting anything good. I'd much, much, much rather have one proficient, in my timezone developer at 200k than 4 offshored developers at 50k.

Mc91 5y ago
> I'd much, much, much rather have one proficient, in my timezone developer at 200k than 4 offshored developers at 50k. This idea meshes with the lessons Fred Brooks learned as a PM of the System 360 project in the early 1960s.
- justbaker 5y ago
  The mythical man month !
senko 5y ago
> I'd much, much, much rather have one proficient, in my timezone developer at 200k. Yes, but do you think you'll get proficient developers on the west coast for just 200k, when unicorn startups and FAANGs pay at least twice that for great people? For the fully loaded cost of one really good developer in the Bay Area (400k) you can get four equally good developers anywhere in Europe (I'm not even talking Eastern Europe here), who will happily shuffle their schedule to accomodate a few evening zoom calls or reply to a few mails. The talent pool in this industry is global, and it's extremely hot everywhere, but ignoring purchasing power parity is just self-deception.
- rsanek 5y ago
  > For the fully loaded cost of one really good developer in the Bay Area (400k) you can get four equally good developers anywhere in Europe I think the 'equally good' is the part that I am really unsure of. From personal experience, the difference in competence of my coworkers when I moved from a medium-sized US city to the Bay Area was massive, and I had been working at one of the better/well-respected employers in my old geography. There's also some research I've seen that supports this on a global level -- see eg https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1814646116 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1814646116

Mc91 5y ago

> I'd much, much, much rather have one proficient, in my timezone developer at 200k than 4 offshored developers at 50k. This idea meshes with the lessons Fred Brooks learned as a PM of the System 360 project in the early 1960s.

justbaker 5y ago
The mythical man month !

senko 5y ago

> I'd much, much, much rather have one proficient, in my timezone developer at 200k. Yes, but do you think you'll get proficient developers on the west coast for just 200k, when unicorn startups and FAANGs pay at least twice that for great people? For the fully loaded cost of one really good developer in the Bay Area (400k) you can get four equally good developers anywhere in Europe (I'm not even talking Eastern Europe here), who will happily shuffle their schedule to accomodate a few evening zoom calls or reply to a few mails. The talent pool in this industry is global, and it's extremely hot everywhere, but ignoring purchasing power parity is just self-deception.

rsanek 5y ago
> For the fully loaded cost of one really good developer in the Bay Area (400k) you can get four equally good developers anywhere in Europe I think the 'equally good' is the part that I am really unsure of. From personal experience, the difference in competence of my coworkers when I moved from a medium-sized US city to the Bay Area was massive, and I had been working at one of the better/well-respected employers in my old geography. There's also some research I've seen that supports this on a global level -- see eg https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1814646116 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1814646116