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53% that want remote positions need to realize that there’s someone in another country willing to do the remote job remotely for 1/6th of the wage. My experien

53% that want remote positions need to realize that there’s someone in another country willing to do the remote job remotely for 1/6th of the wage. My experience as of late is remote workers in India have advanced their language and professional skills greatly in the last 5-10 years. Be careful what you wish for.

commandlinefan 4y ago
> have advanced their language and professional skills They haven't made much progress in advancing their time zone difference, though.
voxl 4y ago
If this where true then the labor would be gobbled up by the market regardless of how the labor in the U.S. feels. So the obvious question is, if you're so worried about it, why isn't it already happening?
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  It's happening very slowly but it's happening. In my Eastern European country tech wages shot up immensely after the Covid WFH boom thanks to American companies hiring here a lot. In the US 80k+ is a bottom junior wage but here it's a king's ransom considering the lower taxes and lower CoL, so there's talented seniors willing to grind long hours and work on US timezones for that kind of cheese. I assume it's similar in Latin-AM and Asia. So far it probably hasn't noticeably impacted US wages as there was an endless stream of free money pouring from the sky which enabled tech companies to keep hiring mostly US talent and grow much faster than off-shore talent onboarding could reliably be done, but now that the negative rate money printing bonanza is over, and the companies figured out how to better work fully remote and how to screen for quality off-shore talent, US companies without the massive war-chests that FAANGs have might focus more on talent from abroad to stay profitable. Just my 0.02$
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- rtp4me 4y ago
  It already has happened. In the big tech companies I worked for, adding new headcount always seemed to come from outside the US. Even today, many of the senior leaders come from India. Not to mention the people with Visas.
  - ta1243 4y ago
    Why do they need visas if they are remote workers?
  - downrightmike 4y ago
    My overlords banned hiring any Americans in 2020 and have whittled the Americans on team to less than the minimum to be successful. Like we have a email security team that has one guy and one consultant. And we keep getting more non-US personnel, "They are cross trained on everything", Yet they don't know how to do basic tasks that users can do and have been around for months at least. I gave them the training docs, but they never bothered to read them. If you're brought on a 'Senior', RTFM. Writing on the wall. This latest RTO push seems to be designed to get rid of as many Americans as possible.
    - tristor 4y ago
      Sounds like so many large enterprises in the US, I can't tell which company you're referring to. Unfortunately, workers aren't actually fungible, in tech and non-tech roles, and whether the worker is an American or not isn't actually important, but it acts as a bellwether for how seriously invested in the role company leadership is and how stringent the hiring process is. Nearly every major company and all the core infrastructure of American society is crumbling slowly as the oldest members of society extract any remaining value through financialization. Everyone under 40 is pretty fucked, and foreigners taking your job is the least of the problem, because even after that happens it continues to get worse because the basic services of society you rely on also crumble as they're taken over by uninterested and unaffected third-parties.
      - downrightmike 4y ago
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Your view is far too tech centric. People old enough to be retirees are unlikely to work in tech/SW development but more stuff like law, medicine or traditional engineering where local credentials matter and act as gate keeping, so it's highly unlikely they'll face competition from abroad. Mostly tech workers are at risk from remote work negatively impacting their wages.
- throwaway5959 4y ago
  They’re only too old due to age discrimination. I’ve worked with a number of excellent 50+ y/o workers in tech.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    50+ aren't really retirees though, they're just older workers. How many 65+ SW devs do you know with up to date marketable skills?
    - throwaway5959 4y ago
      They’re all retired, they’ve done very well for themselves and still hack for fun (and have fun associated hobbies like Ham and electronics).
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        That was exactly my point. Retirees in tech aren't coming back out of retirement to work in flavor of the month framework and modern agile cargo cult.
        throwaway5959 4y ago
        > modern agile cargo cult. Hear hear.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      I know a fair number of 65+ SW devs that are still working and their skills are as up-to-date as anyone else's. There are two such engineers on my team right now. (For the record, I am not a sprightly 20something, but I also am not nearing retirement yet.)
rtp4me 4y ago
Agree 100%. 20yrs ago I worked with multiple teams from India, and we always seemed to have language, skill, and expectation gaps ("the work is done" did not always mean it was done). Now, the India teams are very skilled, speak good/great English, and the expectation gaps are much closer. As you said, "be careful what you wish for"...
- JohnFen 4y ago
  A decade ago, I worked on a team that was half in India and half local to me (in the US). There was no problem with skills, language, etc. at all. But the time difference was a constant and pretty large issue. If you wanted to have a live meeting, it meant that someone was going to have to be working at a problematic hour.
  - rtp4me 4y ago
    Agreed on the time issue. Even with Israeli engineering teams, their work week starts on Sunday and ends on Thursday. Thus, you are given a 4-day collaboration week.
throwaway5959 4y ago
Almost all software engineering jobs can be done remotely. If the only thing you have to offer is proximity, you’re probably not going to be in a good position.
Spivak 4y ago
Yeah, this sounds great. Everyone in the world getting access to the tech industry without having to be gatekept by living in a few tech-hubs in the US. I think at some point we have to turn off the "but any advancement at all will be bad for me because post capitalist hellscape" voice as that's true of everything.
rocknor 4y ago
Despite continuous cries of "capitalism bad" these days it continues to uplift people all around the world by offering skilled people a fairer chance to compete, while also promoting long lasting world peace. We need more of it, not less.
- symlinkk 4y ago
  It uplifts people across the globe while hurting your fellow citizens. We need less of it, not more.
babyshake 4y ago
Remote workers in India isn't the only inexpensive workforce that has improved language skills recently...
- danuker 4y ago
  Indeed. Computers as well. And the workers in India could leverage them to further close the skill gap.
unity1001 4y ago
Its a good thing to wish for: This way, the US labor can also become free to disperse to regions with more sane cost of living and work for similar wages. Similar wages, because the overseas senior talent wont work for anyone's corp for dimes, in contrast to what some seem to think. They have their own career trajectories, their expectations. If you don't pay them more than what the local corps pay, you wont get them because those local corps come with a lot of perks and the social status. The latter can be quite more important in many regions of the world in respect to the expectations of your family, relatives and friends so the pay difference must be worth losing it.
- rocknor 4y ago
  Yeah, people who think jobs being shipped to other countries is bad should realise that in the long run this increases their own mobility. The quality of life gap between the US and these countries decreases, because higher per-capita income makes everything better. This leads to fewer visa restrictions between those countries. Believe me, India's geographical diversity and cultural openness makes it an amazing place to live provided it fixes its pressing issues and increases its HDI. Tangentially, this shows why moving jobs to countries with similar values of democracy/pluralism/diversity (e.g. India) is better than authoritarian states, as the latter does not really improve the mobility of your citizens.
  - combustion 4y ago
    I think this ignores the fact that there's not enough wealth to go around for everyone on earth to live at a US level QoL.
    - rocknor 4y ago
      QoL != wealth. For example, many Americans live in Europe and more would gladly do so despite significantly lower per-capita income.
Zetice 4y ago
Any foreign worker that's as good as a "native" worker will also successfully find a job paying within 10% of what the "native" worker would be paid. Once you get into the lower cost workers, and that's why quality dips.

commandlinefan 4y ago

> have advanced their language and professional skills They haven't made much progress in advancing their time zone difference, though.

voxl 4y ago

If this where true then the labor would be gobbled up by the market regardless of how the labor in the U.S. feels. So the obvious question is, if you're so worried about it, why isn't it already happening?

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
It's happening very slowly but it's happening. In my Eastern European country tech wages shot up immensely after the Covid WFH boom thanks to American companies hiring here a lot. In the US 80k+ is a bottom junior wage but here it's a king's ransom considering the lower taxes and lower CoL, so there's talented seniors willing to grind long hours and work on US timezones for that kind of cheese. I assume it's similar in Latin-AM and Asia. So far it probably hasn't noticeably impacted US wages as there was an endless stream of free money pouring from the sky which enabled tech companies to keep hiring mostly US talent and grow much faster than off-shore talent onboarding could reliably be done, but now that the negative rate money printing bonanza is over, and the companies figured out how to better work fully remote and how to screen for quality off-shore talent, US companies without the massive war-chests that FAANGs have might focus more on talent from abroad to stay profitable. Just my 0.02$
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rtp4me 4y ago
It already has happened. In the big tech companies I worked for, adding new headcount always seemed to come from outside the US. Even today, many of the senior leaders come from India. Not to mention the people with Visas.
- ta1243 4y ago
  Why do they need visas if they are remote workers?
- downrightmike 4y ago
  My overlords banned hiring any Americans in 2020 and have whittled the Americans on team to less than the minimum to be successful. Like we have a email security team that has one guy and one consultant. And we keep getting more non-US personnel, "They are cross trained on everything", Yet they don't know how to do basic tasks that users can do and have been around for months at least. I gave them the training docs, but they never bothered to read them. If you're brought on a 'Senior', RTFM. Writing on the wall. This latest RTO push seems to be designed to get rid of as many Americans as possible.
  - tristor 4y ago
    Sounds like so many large enterprises in the US, I can't tell which company you're referring to. Unfortunately, workers aren't actually fungible, in tech and non-tech roles, and whether the worker is an American or not isn't actually important, but it acts as a bellwether for how seriously invested in the role company leadership is and how stringent the hiring process is. Nearly every major company and all the core infrastructure of American society is crumbling slowly as the oldest members of society extract any remaining value through financialization. Everyone under 40 is pretty fucked, and foreigners taking your job is the least of the problem, because even after that happens it continues to get worse because the basic services of society you rely on also crumble as they're taken over by uninterested and unaffected third-parties.
    - downrightmike 4y ago

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

Your view is far too tech centric. People old enough to be retirees are unlikely to work in tech/SW development but more stuff like law, medicine or traditional engineering where local credentials matter and act as gate keeping, so it's highly unlikely they'll face competition from abroad. Mostly tech workers are at risk from remote work negatively impacting their wages.

throwaway5959 4y ago
They’re only too old due to age discrimination. I’ve worked with a number of excellent 50+ y/o workers in tech.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  50+ aren't really retirees though, they're just older workers. How many 65+ SW devs do you know with up to date marketable skills?
  - throwaway5959 4y ago
    They’re all retired, they’ve done very well for themselves and still hack for fun (and have fun associated hobbies like Ham and electronics).
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      That was exactly my point. Retirees in tech aren't coming back out of retirement to work in flavor of the month framework and modern agile cargo cult.
      - throwaway5959 4y ago
        > modern agile cargo cult. Hear hear.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    I know a fair number of 65+ SW devs that are still working and their skills are as up-to-date as anyone else's. There are two such engineers on my team right now. (For the record, I am not a sprightly 20something, but I also am not nearing retirement yet.)

rtp4me 4y ago

Agree 100%. 20yrs ago I worked with multiple teams from India, and we always seemed to have language, skill, and expectation gaps ("the work is done" did not always mean it was done). Now, the India teams are very skilled, speak good/great English, and the expectation gaps are much closer. As you said, "be careful what you wish for"...

JohnFen 4y ago
A decade ago, I worked on a team that was half in India and half local to me (in the US). There was no problem with skills, language, etc. at all. But the time difference was a constant and pretty large issue. If you wanted to have a live meeting, it meant that someone was going to have to be working at a problematic hour.
- rtp4me 4y ago
  Agreed on the time issue. Even with Israeli engineering teams, their work week starts on Sunday and ends on Thursday. Thus, you are given a 4-day collaboration week.

throwaway5959 4y ago

Almost all software engineering jobs can be done remotely. If the only thing you have to offer is proximity, you’re probably not going to be in a good position.

Spivak 4y ago

Yeah, this sounds great. Everyone in the world getting access to the tech industry without having to be gatekept by living in a few tech-hubs in the US. I think at some point we have to turn off the "but any advancement at all will be bad for me because post capitalist hellscape" voice as that's true of everything.

rocknor 4y ago

Despite continuous cries of "capitalism bad" these days it continues to uplift people all around the world by offering skilled people a fairer chance to compete, while also promoting long lasting world peace. We need more of it, not less.

symlinkk 4y ago
It uplifts people across the globe while hurting your fellow citizens. We need less of it, not more.

babyshake 4y ago

Remote workers in India isn't the only inexpensive workforce that has improved language skills recently...

danuker 4y ago
Indeed. Computers as well. And the workers in India could leverage them to further close the skill gap.

unity1001 4y ago

Its a good thing to wish for: This way, the US labor can also become free to disperse to regions with more sane cost of living and work for similar wages. Similar wages, because the overseas senior talent wont work for anyone's corp for dimes, in contrast to what some seem to think. They have their own career trajectories, their expectations. If you don't pay them more than what the local corps pay, you wont get them because those local corps come with a lot of perks and the social status. The latter can be quite more important in many regions of the world in respect to the expectations of your family, relatives and friends so the pay difference must be worth losing it.

rocknor 4y ago
Yeah, people who think jobs being shipped to other countries is bad should realise that in the long run this increases their own mobility. The quality of life gap between the US and these countries decreases, because higher per-capita income makes everything better. This leads to fewer visa restrictions between those countries. Believe me, India's geographical diversity and cultural openness makes it an amazing place to live provided it fixes its pressing issues and increases its HDI. Tangentially, this shows why moving jobs to countries with similar values of democracy/pluralism/diversity (e.g. India) is better than authoritarian states, as the latter does not really improve the mobility of your citizens.
- combustion 4y ago
  I think this ignores the fact that there's not enough wealth to go around for everyone on earth to live at a US level QoL.
  - rocknor 4y ago
    QoL != wealth. For example, many Americans live in Europe and more would gladly do so despite significantly lower per-capita income.

Zetice 4y ago

Any foreign worker that's as good as a "native" worker will also successfully find a job paying within 10% of what the "native" worker would be paid. Once you get into the lower cost workers, and that's why quality dips.