5 ms·

Will your tech job be offshored?

11 points by connor11528 4y ago

yrgulation 4y ago
My view on this is that old tech gets outsourced to make room for new tech. That or the company is struggling financially and is not worth working at anyway.
- connor11528 4y ago
  I understand that view, that companies only outsource old tech or tech that is a cost center for the business. Perhaps it's only companies that are struggling and have been gobbled up by private equity firms that outsource their tech workforce. Does that have to be the case though? Companies like Deel and Remote seem to be making it easy to directly hire elite engineers in other countries. Additionally there are plenty of fresh YC startups that have all engineering offshore. Additionally most unicorns have engineering teams in other countries they employ directly, not through third parties.
  - yrgulation 4y ago
    “hire elite engineers” Hiring != outsourcing. Indeed you are right re hiring.
streetcat1 4y ago
Actually the reversed will happen. Onshoring.
- senttoschool 4y ago
  Give us an explanation. I've maintained that everyone advocating for permanent remote work should reverse and advocate for office return. Why? I've been traveling around the world. There are a ton of very talented, hardworking, and eager workers making 1/10th of what remote workers here make. Sooner or later, companies are going to figure out that they can get same, similar, or even better output from hiring workers outside of the US. Once companies figure it out, there's no going back. I predict that remote workers will want to return to the office very soon because of this threat.
  - jjoonathan 4y ago
    Managing remote work (let alone contractors) is far more difficult than in-person and geographic / time zone / cultural / legal differences only amplify this, but yes, I think far too many people who fight for remote work don't realize that they are fighting for their own commoditization, and that it will kill their career if they actually get what they think they want.
    - senttoschool 4y ago
      Geographic --> does not matter much because of 100% remote teams time zone --> plenty of people will work during nights and sleep during days if they can 10x their income cultural --> doesn't matter too much for software engineering. But I will agree that this is important for jobs like marketing. legal --> a lot of companies have popped up to make it easy to hire around the world and stay compliant.
      - jjoonathan 4y ago
        You are taking a narrow view of the possible problems, which include adversarial strategies from outsourcing firms. It's not a matter of can things go correctly -- of course they can -- it's a matter of can unscrupulous actors exploit the chaos to bilk their clients. Historically that has been the failure mode, and the fracture points I listed were their tools of trade. "Just use a platform / reputation firm / ..." Yeah, we had those in the last wave of outsourcing, too. They were not able to tackle the "fraud-lite" problem for the simple reason that it was much more profitable to become part of the problem and ride the bubble until it collapsed.
    - celdon25 4y ago
      > I think far too many people who fight for remote work don't realize that they are fighting for their own commoditization, and that it will kill their career if they actually get what they think they want. A reasonable argument, but it doesn't always hold true. I've been remote since 2014. I work more, not less, because of it. And I bring a lot to the table when it comes to solutions. A mid-level dev would have a much higher risk of replacement.
jjoonathan 4y ago
> Advocates of neoliberalism and globalization acknowledged these jobs were being destroyed but they figured those people would get jobs doing something else. No, they know exactly what they are doing, they just don't want to be held responsible for > people... committing suicide in record high numbers. Drugs like fentonyl numb the pain of a dreary existence because if they are held responsible for both problems and profits, rather than just profits, their entire hustle falls apart.
- connor11528 4y ago
  Ya I'm not sure we ever need to hold profit motivated companies responsible for social or democratic goals but I do think we need to provide a legal and regulatory framework that protects or advances democratic and social goals. Regulation is needed to preserve economic freedom, otherwise free markets turn into markets dominated by monopolies.
  - jjoonathan 4y ago
    Normally I would agree, but our current political landscape is failing miserably at this goal, and it's failing due to the efforts of fair-weather proponents of responsibility. If you try to regulate, you'll get "we built this" type rhetoric, and the response is "yeah, but you caused that." We have to win this battle before we can do it right.
Ekaros 4y ago
Better question is will they be entirely terminated and not replaced. Which for short term is realistic possiblity.

11 points by connor11528 4y ago

My view on this is that old tech gets outsourced to make room for new tech. That or the company is struggling financially and is not worth working at anyway.

connor11528 4y ago
I understand that view, that companies only outsource old tech or tech that is a cost center for the business. Perhaps it's only companies that are struggling and have been gobbled up by private equity firms that outsource their tech workforce. Does that have to be the case though? Companies like Deel and Remote seem to be making it easy to directly hire elite engineers in other countries. Additionally there are plenty of fresh YC startups that have all engineering offshore. Additionally most unicorns have engineering teams in other countries they employ directly, not through third parties.
- yrgulation 4y ago
  “hire elite engineers” Hiring != outsourcing. Indeed you are right re hiring.

streetcat1 4y ago

Actually the reversed will happen. Onshoring.

senttoschool 4y ago
Give us an explanation. I've maintained that everyone advocating for permanent remote work should reverse and advocate for office return. Why? I've been traveling around the world. There are a ton of very talented, hardworking, and eager workers making 1/10th of what remote workers here make. Sooner or later, companies are going to figure out that they can get same, similar, or even better output from hiring workers outside of the US. Once companies figure it out, there's no going back. I predict that remote workers will want to return to the office very soon because of this threat.
- jjoonathan 4y ago
  Managing remote work (let alone contractors) is far more difficult than in-person and geographic / time zone / cultural / legal differences only amplify this, but yes, I think far too many people who fight for remote work don't realize that they are fighting for their own commoditization, and that it will kill their career if they actually get what they think they want.
  - senttoschool 4y ago
    Geographic --> does not matter much because of 100% remote teams time zone --> plenty of people will work during nights and sleep during days if they can 10x their income cultural --> doesn't matter too much for software engineering. But I will agree that this is important for jobs like marketing. legal --> a lot of companies have popped up to make it easy to hire around the world and stay compliant.
    - jjoonathan 4y ago
      You are taking a narrow view of the possible problems, which include adversarial strategies from outsourcing firms. It's not a matter of can things go correctly -- of course they can -- it's a matter of can unscrupulous actors exploit the chaos to bilk their clients. Historically that has been the failure mode, and the fracture points I listed were their tools of trade. "Just use a platform / reputation firm / ..." Yeah, we had those in the last wave of outsourcing, too. They were not able to tackle the "fraud-lite" problem for the simple reason that it was much more profitable to become part of the problem and ride the bubble until it collapsed.
  - celdon25 4y ago
    > I think far too many people who fight for remote work don't realize that they are fighting for their own commoditization, and that it will kill their career if they actually get what they think they want. A reasonable argument, but it doesn't always hold true. I've been remote since 2014. I work more, not less, because of it. And I bring a lot to the table when it comes to solutions. A mid-level dev would have a much higher risk of replacement.

jjoonathan 4y ago

> Advocates of neoliberalism and globalization acknowledged these jobs were being destroyed but they figured those people would get jobs doing something else. No, they know exactly what they are doing, they just don't want to be held responsible for > people... committing suicide in record high numbers. Drugs like fentonyl numb the pain of a dreary existence because if they are held responsible for both problems and profits, rather than just profits, their entire hustle falls apart.

connor11528 4y ago
Ya I'm not sure we ever need to hold profit motivated companies responsible for social or democratic goals but I do think we need to provide a legal and regulatory framework that protects or advances democratic and social goals. Regulation is needed to preserve economic freedom, otherwise free markets turn into markets dominated by monopolies.
- jjoonathan 4y ago
  Normally I would agree, but our current political landscape is failing miserably at this goal, and it's failing due to the efforts of fair-weather proponents of responsibility. If you try to regulate, you'll get "we built this" type rhetoric, and the response is "yeah, but you caused that." We have to win this battle before we can do it right.

Ekaros 4y ago

Better question is will they be entirely terminated and not replaced. Which for short term is realistic possiblity.