6 ms·

Same. My "team" is doubling in size, but all the hires are international.

Mc91 3y ago
Same. I work as an SWE at a non-FAANG, non-tech Fortune 100 company. We already had an IT staff in India and would hire consultants in India, but this has been accelerating over the past year - virtually all hires or new consulting contracts have been in India. Some of the SWEs in the US are even being put under PMs in India.
- giantg2 3y ago
  My company is actually doing mostly Europe and ex-US North America
  - pc86 3y ago
    I've actually considered setting up a Mexican corporation to run C2C contracts through for those who want LATAM hires, but the logistics seemed pretty onerous, especially since I don't live near the border. I'd be willing to do a single trip there to finalize everything, but it seems like as a US resident/citizen you'd need to basically stay there for weeks/months while everything is set up, or make multiple trips for each step of the process. It's hard not to get angry at the company when you see them hiring at median US wages ($100-120k US equivalent) but specifically refusing to hiring folks in the US, when the company is US-based.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    Yeah seeing a lot of Canadian and Mexico hires. Mexico City, especially -- general consensus is that the level of expertise is good, it's not hard to find a Spanish speaker in the US, better cultural fits, and the timezones overlap better; MXC is on Central Time. Not India-level cheap, but competitive enough. Canada is even better in that sense, but at a higher price. NAFTA TN visas are also attractive there, too. No H1B nonsense, and can easily bring personnel over for short (~3 year) tours. Disclaimer: USA-ian of Hispanic extraction in Canada, so I follow these gigs reasonably closely.
  - __turbobrew__ 3y ago
    At my company many of the new hires are within Canada. You get similar talent, similar culture, native English, and same time zones for about 2/3 the cost of a USA dev. You also don’t have to pay for healthcare of your Canadian employees since they pay for it on their income taxes.
    - dukeyukey 3y ago
      Being in the UK I see a lot of that too - we're cheaper than Americans, speak the same language, are pretty close culturally, and while we're a few timezones off, we're far enough east to overlap with both the West Coast and India. Plus, London alone has 10 million people, and if you lump in the London commuter belt that adds up to aroun 15 million people, more than all of Ontario! That's a hell of a skilled worker base to work with.
hotpotamus 3y ago
I've been down this road, and I'm sorry to tell you that your team will be halving again once the international hires are considered onboarded. They might sell it as going to a follow the sun model, but the plan is to move to cheaper labor. I've been through it myself.
yesdocs 3y ago
It’s time we unionize as software developers. You saw what the UAW achieved, Software Engineering needs the same type of protections
- pc86 3y ago
  Protectionism doesn't work beyond selfish short-term interests. American cars are not exactly paragons of technical or mechanical prowess compared to their Japanese or German counterparts. I've been a software developer for the better part of two decades, I'm not worried about the C-tier code coming out of rural India. You shouldn't be either unless you're a really bad dev.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    I’m okay with my fellow citizens being selfish and protecting their livelihood. No one else will. “Whose interests?” You’re advocating for shareholder returns (labor arb savings->profits). Ain’t nobody coming to save us. If we can mandate EV batteries be built in the US to get subsidies (Inflation Reduction Act), other protectionism mechanisms should be on the table. Otherwise, businesses will do their best to maximize profits in the market they’re offering in without any labor contribution back, extractionist style.
    - pc86 3y ago
      I appreciate you telling me what I'm advocating for. Any basic macroeconomics class covers the effects of protectionism. Yes, in the short term wages may be artificially propped up, industries may be (temporarily) saved, but you do long-term damage to the economy, and the people are better off with free, open markets long term.
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        > but you do long-term damage to the economy, and the people are better off with free, open markets long term. The evidence does not show the American worker being better off after these policies you support were enacted and have had decades to run. Free trade is great for shareholders and some consumer cohorts who get excess utility, but terrible for workers. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” https://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/ https://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/ https://www.epi.org/publication/botched-policy-responses-to-globalization/ https://www.epi.org/publication/botched-policy-responses-to-... https://www.epi.org/press/globalization-lowered-wages-american-workers/ https://www.epi.org/press/globalization-lowered-wages-americ... https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/09/459087477/the-tipping-point-most-americans-no-longer-are-middle-class https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/09/459087477...
deathpanels 3y ago
I bailed on a small local company in early 2021. I checked in with how they were doing recently. They laid off all the local developers, minus management (of course). They're hiring exclusively in Africa, the Middle-East, and South America. My current company has done the same thing by emphasizing that we're only hiring in our EU office. I've not seen many US based roles unless they are customer support related. It is predictable that remote work would lead to another wave of off-shoring. The question now is whether or not these companies can actually innovate with a remote, largely foreign workforce. We've all seen the abominations produced by offshore teams. Moving to a fully remote foreign workforce may be short-sighted.
- giantg2 3y ago
  At least so far, we've seen foreign direct hires work out well. Much better than the outsourcing teams by a long shot.
- bruce511 3y ago
  >> actually innovate with a remote, largely foreign workforce. As distinct from a remote, largely local, expensive workforce? Innovation is often the mix of vision, direction, and implementation. AWS for example, was implemented by an offshore team. [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Web_Services#:~:text=Thereafter%20Pinkham%2C%20Willem%20van%20Biljon,Simple%20Queue%20Service%20(SQS) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Web_Services#:~:text=....
  - dh2022 3y ago
    AWS was not implemented by an offshore team. The link you pasted implies that EC2 was implemented by an offshore team - which is not correct either. EC2 had two teams, one of which was in Cape Town. The other team was in Seattle - and larger than the one in Cape Town. The rest of AWS at the time (2007) consisted of S3, SQS, DevPay, CDN, SimpleDB (AWS' own DB implementation at the time) etc... These teams were all in Seattle (in the red brick building by I5).

Mc91 3y ago

Same. I work as an SWE at a non-FAANG, non-tech Fortune 100 company. We already had an IT staff in India and would hire consultants in India, but this has been accelerating over the past year - virtually all hires or new consulting contracts have been in India. Some of the SWEs in the US are even being put under PMs in India.

giantg2 3y ago
My company is actually doing mostly Europe and ex-US North America
- pc86 3y ago
  I've actually considered setting up a Mexican corporation to run C2C contracts through for those who want LATAM hires, but the logistics seemed pretty onerous, especially since I don't live near the border. I'd be willing to do a single trip there to finalize everything, but it seems like as a US resident/citizen you'd need to basically stay there for weeks/months while everything is set up, or make multiple trips for each step of the process. It's hard not to get angry at the company when you see them hiring at median US wages ($100-120k US equivalent) but specifically refusing to hiring folks in the US, when the company is US-based.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  Yeah seeing a lot of Canadian and Mexico hires. Mexico City, especially -- general consensus is that the level of expertise is good, it's not hard to find a Spanish speaker in the US, better cultural fits, and the timezones overlap better; MXC is on Central Time. Not India-level cheap, but competitive enough. Canada is even better in that sense, but at a higher price. NAFTA TN visas are also attractive there, too. No H1B nonsense, and can easily bring personnel over for short (~3 year) tours. Disclaimer: USA-ian of Hispanic extraction in Canada, so I follow these gigs reasonably closely.
- __turbobrew__ 3y ago
  At my company many of the new hires are within Canada. You get similar talent, similar culture, native English, and same time zones for about 2/3 the cost of a USA dev. You also don’t have to pay for healthcare of your Canadian employees since they pay for it on their income taxes.
  - dukeyukey 3y ago
    Being in the UK I see a lot of that too - we're cheaper than Americans, speak the same language, are pretty close culturally, and while we're a few timezones off, we're far enough east to overlap with both the West Coast and India. Plus, London alone has 10 million people, and if you lump in the London commuter belt that adds up to aroun 15 million people, more than all of Ontario! That's a hell of a skilled worker base to work with.

hotpotamus 3y ago

I've been down this road, and I'm sorry to tell you that your team will be halving again once the international hires are considered onboarded. They might sell it as going to a follow the sun model, but the plan is to move to cheaper labor. I've been through it myself.

yesdocs 3y ago

It’s time we unionize as software developers. You saw what the UAW achieved, Software Engineering needs the same type of protections

pc86 3y ago
Protectionism doesn't work beyond selfish short-term interests. American cars are not exactly paragons of technical or mechanical prowess compared to their Japanese or German counterparts. I've been a software developer for the better part of two decades, I'm not worried about the C-tier code coming out of rural India. You shouldn't be either unless you're a really bad dev.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  I’m okay with my fellow citizens being selfish and protecting their livelihood. No one else will. “Whose interests?” You’re advocating for shareholder returns (labor arb savings->profits). Ain’t nobody coming to save us. If we can mandate EV batteries be built in the US to get subsidies (Inflation Reduction Act), other protectionism mechanisms should be on the table. Otherwise, businesses will do their best to maximize profits in the market they’re offering in without any labor contribution back, extractionist style.
  - pc86 3y ago
    I appreciate you telling me what I'm advocating for. Any basic macroeconomics class covers the effects of protectionism. Yes, in the short term wages may be artificially propped up, industries may be (temporarily) saved, but you do long-term damage to the economy, and the people are better off with free, open markets long term.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      > but you do long-term damage to the economy, and the people are better off with free, open markets long term. The evidence does not show the American worker being better off after these policies you support were enacted and have had decades to run. Free trade is great for shareholders and some consumer cohorts who get excess utility, but terrible for workers. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” https://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/ https://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/ https://www.epi.org/publication/botched-policy-responses-to-globalization/ https://www.epi.org/publication/botched-policy-responses-to-... https://www.epi.org/press/globalization-lowered-wages-american-workers/ https://www.epi.org/press/globalization-lowered-wages-americ... https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/09/459087477/the-tipping-point-most-americans-no-longer-are-middle-class https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/09/459087477...

deathpanels 3y ago

I bailed on a small local company in early 2021. I checked in with how they were doing recently. They laid off all the local developers, minus management (of course). They're hiring exclusively in Africa, the Middle-East, and South America. My current company has done the same thing by emphasizing that we're only hiring in our EU office. I've not seen many US based roles unless they are customer support related. It is predictable that remote work would lead to another wave of off-shoring. The question now is whether or not these companies can actually innovate with a remote, largely foreign workforce. We've all seen the abominations produced by offshore teams. Moving to a fully remote foreign workforce may be short-sighted.

giantg2 3y ago
At least so far, we've seen foreign direct hires work out well. Much better than the outsourcing teams by a long shot.
bruce511 3y ago
>> actually innovate with a remote, largely foreign workforce. As distinct from a remote, largely local, expensive workforce? Innovation is often the mix of vision, direction, and implementation. AWS for example, was implemented by an offshore team. [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Web_Services#:~:text=Thereafter%20Pinkham%2C%20Willem%20van%20Biljon,Simple%20Queue%20Service%20(SQS) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Web_Services#:~:text=....
- dh2022 3y ago
  AWS was not implemented by an offshore team. The link you pasted implies that EC2 was implemented by an offshore team - which is not correct either. EC2 had two teams, one of which was in Cape Town. The other team was in Seattle - and larger than the one in Cape Town. The rest of AWS at the time (2007) consisted of S3, SQS, DevPay, CDN, SimpleDB (AWS' own DB implementation at the time) etc... These teams were all in Seattle (in the red brick building by I5).