3 ms·

I'm afraid that this is a trend that is only going to accelerate in the new remote-first world that is now the reality for software engineering. Sure, some comp

I'm afraid that this is a trend that is only going to accelerate in the new remote-first world that is now the reality for software engineering. Sure, some companies mint money and will always pay a premium for top talent. But for a mature product not bringing in huge amounts of revenue, why pay someone to work remotely in the US (especially in the bay area) versus paying someone a third of that salary in Europe?

geswit2x 3y ago
I'm afraid that "hell for some will be heaven for others." Haven't you stopped to think that many people in Europe will be glad about this? And it will bring development to places that would otherwise be unfeasible. Why is liberalism only good when it benefits us?
- tebbers 3y ago
  I’m not sure they’re saying it’s a bad thing? Just a thing that is happening.
ghaff 3y ago
Wages are sticky on the downside. But yes over time—assuming a lot of remote work—why would I want to pay someone a premium to live in a high cost area like the Bay or Manhattan any more than to live somewhere like Aspen.
lamontcg 3y ago
Because you fire everyone who knows how the systems work. And while Evernote sounds like a weekend project to everyone on HN, I'm certain that over the decade-plus of its existence that it has accreted a lot of technical debt and 'FIXME: we should rewrite this spaghetti' all over the codebase. You've now replaced anyone who knows how the product actually works with people who don't understand the product and aren't going to be incentivized to /care/ about the product at all. The codebase probably needs a rewrite, but the people who understood all the issues of the codebase are gone, so any future rewrite is just about guaranteed to fail. So what you're left with is a skeleton staff who just keeps it running, it won't grow it won't get new features, it'll stagnate and the profits will come from cutting staff even more aggressively. It is definitely a zombie product now. And any remaining users should already have jumped ship. The staff remaining won't know how it all works, they'll have cut staff down to the bone, and there's a high likelihood of everything getting hacked or just constant service interruptions.
- arein3 3y ago
  Evernote is not rocket science. Each new onboarding presumes the developer to make himself familiar with the project. I don't get the "they won't know how it works", a senior developer should make himself familiar pretty quickly.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    > Evernote is not rocket science. I'd bet money that if you got to see the codebase they have to work with that it is at least 10x more of a clusterfuck than you currently think it is.
    - arein3 3y ago
      I am not overly optimistic, but if you are able to run the servers locally and run the frontends locally and have the list of all features the application has, then you should be able to execute them all locally and underatand how it works. It will not be fast, but if you are senior, and the technologies are known to you, it should not take extremely long.

geswit2x 3y ago

I'm afraid that "hell for some will be heaven for others." Haven't you stopped to think that many people in Europe will be glad about this? And it will bring development to places that would otherwise be unfeasible. Why is liberalism only good when it benefits us?

tebbers 3y ago
I’m not sure they’re saying it’s a bad thing? Just a thing that is happening.

ghaff 3y ago

Wages are sticky on the downside. But yes over time—assuming a lot of remote work—why would I want to pay someone a premium to live in a high cost area like the Bay or Manhattan any more than to live somewhere like Aspen.

lamontcg 3y ago

Because you fire everyone who knows how the systems work. And while Evernote sounds like a weekend project to everyone on HN, I'm certain that over the decade-plus of its existence that it has accreted a lot of technical debt and 'FIXME: we should rewrite this spaghetti' all over the codebase. You've now replaced anyone who knows how the product actually works with people who don't understand the product and aren't going to be incentivized to /care/ about the product at all. The codebase probably needs a rewrite, but the people who understood all the issues of the codebase are gone, so any future rewrite is just about guaranteed to fail. So what you're left with is a skeleton staff who just keeps it running, it won't grow it won't get new features, it'll stagnate and the profits will come from cutting staff even more aggressively. It is definitely a zombie product now. And any remaining users should already have jumped ship. The staff remaining won't know how it all works, they'll have cut staff down to the bone, and there's a high likelihood of everything getting hacked or just constant service interruptions.

arein3 3y ago
Evernote is not rocket science. Each new onboarding presumes the developer to make himself familiar with the project. I don't get the "they won't know how it works", a senior developer should make himself familiar pretty quickly.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  > Evernote is not rocket science. I'd bet money that if you got to see the codebase they have to work with that it is at least 10x more of a clusterfuck than you currently think it is.
  - arein3 3y ago
    I am not overly optimistic, but if you are able to run the servers locally and run the frontends locally and have the list of all features the application has, then you should be able to execute them all locally and underatand how it works. It will not be fast, but if you are senior, and the technologies are known to you, it should not take extremely long.