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"If it could have been outsourced it would have already been outsourced." You're in for a rude awakening. It wasn't outsourced before because: 1) standard wa

"If it could have been outsourced it would have already been outsourced." You're in for a rude awakening. It wasn't outsourced before because: 1) standard was in-office and 2) no mass movement to validate it 3) 'outsourced overseas' often meant 'poor country'. We are only expanding overseas right now because the quality is good and the price is much better. At least for what we are doing. The Valley is not going away, neither are high salaries, though I do wonder what it means for 'home talent at the high range'.

phil21 4y ago
> We are only expanding overseas right now because the quality is good and the price is much better. Indeed. I've been WFH/remote my entire career and have long worked with folks throughout the world. I was considered an outlier for almost all of it. In the past 12mo this has tectonically shifted. Midsize companies I'm close to who would never have dreamed of "outsourcing" are now instituting US hiring freezes after seeing how well hiring a few developers out of eastern europe went. In many cases the talent is simply better without any cost benefit calculation needed. Yes, the top-tier rockstar talent (anyone posting on HN is clearly in that club of course) has nothing to worry about. The everyman programmer working on yet another line of business app or CRUD interface is in for an incredibly brutal market over the next decade or two. Anyone that dismisses this as "outsourcing" is not paying attention. There is little difference working with someone in Toledo Spain vs. Toledo Ohio other than timezone. Timezone is pretty much the sole remaining argument. However, if you are now 100% remote WFH friendly - why would timezones matter that much? All documentation and process is fully online and asynchronous already so a few hours of overlap a day is more than sufficient for well-run teams on most projects.

phil21 4y ago

> We are only expanding overseas right now because the quality is good and the price is much better. Indeed. I've been WFH/remote my entire career and have long worked with folks throughout the world. I was considered an outlier for almost all of it. In the past 12mo this has tectonically shifted. Midsize companies I'm close to who would never have dreamed of "outsourcing" are now instituting US hiring freezes after seeing how well hiring a few developers out of eastern europe went. In many cases the talent is simply better without any cost benefit calculation needed. Yes, the top-tier rockstar talent (anyone posting on HN is clearly in that club of course) has nothing to worry about. The everyman programmer working on yet another line of business app or CRUD interface is in for an incredibly brutal market over the next decade or two. Anyone that dismisses this as "outsourcing" is not paying attention. There is little difference working with someone in Toledo Spain vs. Toledo Ohio other than timezone. Timezone is pretty much the sole remaining argument. However, if you are now 100% remote WFH friendly - why would timezones matter that much? All documentation and process is fully online and asynchronous already so a few hours of overlap a day is more than sufficient for well-run teams on most projects.