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>I'll tell you that I'm getting overseas talent for roles where 10 years ago I would have hired entry level talent in the US the US is going to once again crip

>I'll tell you that I'm getting overseas talent for roles where 10 years ago I would have hired entry level talent in the US the US is going to once again cripple one of their critical industries for short term gains, what happens when your senior engineers retire and there are no replacements prepared because it's more efficient to hire foreign senior engineers rather than onboarding and training a college grad? Even before AI improvements and Covid increasing remote work, the bar for hiring entry engineers was absurd and most startups only wanted seniors I can't blame companies for doing this on the micro level because it makes sense, but macro level the US government needs to take action and treat hiring remote similarly to bringing in a visa worker or add a form of tariff like you would for manufactured products. Government's job is to reign in market forces that are net bad for the country due to unaccounted externalities

solveit 3y ago
Or just let/require them to immigrate here, and get the best of both worlds.
- ponector 3y ago
  Not many tech people wants to immigrate to USA. With 100k annual salary one can live as a king in LATAM or eastern Europe. Overall from my point of view life in Europe is much better than in US.
  - AlchemistCamp 3y ago
    There is objective data to either support or refute this claim. Look at immigration flows from LATAM the the US and compare it with the reverse. Then do the same with eastern Europe.
    - ponector 3y ago
      And then look at the millions of devs is LATAM who never went to USA or emigrated to the EU.
      - AlchemistCamp 3y ago
        Exactly. Look at the net flows in and out of each location!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- airza 3y ago
  The best of both worlds is living in western europe on a US-level salary
  - subarctic 3y ago
    Why western europe and not, say, eastern europe or latin america where cost of living is cheaper?
    - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
      Because Western Europe is, generally, not as shitty as Eastern Europe or Latin America. There is some tongue and cheek to that comment, but not much. You generally don't hear about waves of people wanting to emigrate from France or Austria to Poland or Latvia.
      - bdangubic 3y ago
        as opposed to all polish and latvian people lining up at Austrain and French border… :)
        Terr_ 3y ago
        Given the Schengen area, I'm not sure those four countries make for a good example of anybody waiting at borders in either direction.
        hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
        Not sure if your comment was meant to be sarcastic, but basically, yes, ever since the EU instituted freedom of labor movement, and Eastern countries joined the EU, there have been overall huge amounts of labor migration from Eastern to Western bloc countries.
      - KronisLV 3y ago
        > Because Western Europe is, generally, not as shitty as Eastern Europe or Latin America. > There is some tongue and cheek to that comment, but not much. You generally don't hear about waves of people wanting to emigrate from France or Austria to Poland or Latvia. Latvian here. Life is reasonably affordable, most of the services you'd expect are available in the capital or most cities. Internet is pretty good (I pay 15 EUR for 200 Mbps up and down, could get up to 1000 Mbps for twice that, though cheaper with some providers), food is okay, rent isn't too bad in most places, went through university (both Bachelor's and Master's degrees) with no debt, healthcare is pretty good (especially with insurance), salaries kind of suck though across the board. Public transportation is pretty good, both between cities and within the limits of a city, I really don't need a car. People can be a bit colder, not really that American small talk, but are nice when you get to know them. Except for some kind of harmful cultural stuff (alcoholism, machismo, LOTS of xenophobia but perhaps due to the country's past, some homophobia/transphobia/etc., people being selfish sometimes), also can't really read news site comments here, most are very toxic, like you wouldn't believe. The weather tends to be okay in the summer, but sucks pretty badly in the winter/autumn and sometimes spring. Cold, windy, lots of overcast clouds, overall a very depressing mood, sort of. Nature is pretty though, especially if you go on a boating trip down the rivers. I reckon that other parts of Europe are probably better in many respects, but as with most places, there are positives and negatives.
pavlov 3y ago
> “treat hiring remote similarly to bringing in a visa worker or add a form of tariff like you would for manufactured products” How would this work in practice? Visas and tariffs are enforced at the borders. Where is the checkpoint for taxing foreign remote employees? Would Congress require Slack and GitHub to scan for evidence of work being performed by remote employees? If you just make a law but have no enforcement mechanism, people will find workarounds because they only have to be justified internally.
- ren_engineer 3y ago
  >Where is the checkpoint for taxing foreign remote employees? company payroll/tax reporting I'd assume. If payments are going to a worker in a foreign country, throw an additional tax on it to make it so there's no cost savings compared to hiring locally. That way the only reason to do it would be because you couldn't find the talent locally
  - schwartzworld 3y ago
    That would be quite the tax. Developers in Europe and Asia make a LOT less than the US.
    - ren_engineer 3y ago
      that's kind of the point, you want to eliminate companies just doing labor cost arbitrage rather than hiring globally because they actually need a unique talent they can't find in the US. If that's the case, they will happily pay the premium because that person still provides ROI even at US pay rates. That's supposed to be how H1B visas work as well
      - rented_mule 3y ago
        What's to stop Apple, for example, from setting up companies all over the world that employ their people and own their IP local to the employees? Then Apple US buys / licenses products for US distribution from those companies. Massive companies have far more incentive to "engineer" their way around such laws than lawmakers have to find something without loopholes. Especially given how lobbying works in the US.
huevosabio 3y ago
Wow, you are right that we are crippling a industry with short term goals, but is the other way around. We should let them come work here. Each engineer carries a wealth of knowledge, enthusiasm and demand for other services that is very very valuable for the country. We are all better off if we let every engineer that wants to come and work in the states. Imposing tariffs on remote work would just incentivize outward migration of companies. Don't make companies choose either the US or the world, instead make the US the obvious choice.
- scruple 3y ago
  Have you worked closely with a remote work force from another country? I know a couple of dozen developers in Argentina who trivially rival any American counterpart and they wouldn't move here if we paid them to. Not everyone dreams of migrating to the USA.
  - edanm 3y ago
    I'm sure there's lots of people who wouldn't move to the States. But it's completely untrue to think that more people wouldn't move if given a path, or even if given an easier path.
no_wizard 3y ago
I agree we seem intent on crippling ourselves, but the inverse move would likely be better, which is give tax credits for hiring US citizens on US soil that offset any savings they'd get by hiring out of the US. If you run the numbers, you can adjust individual income tax upward marginally across brackets to account for shortfalls, and it will be far less complicated to implement and enforce. This gives an incentive to keep the dollars domestic vs abroad. You may even want to give some additional tax incentives for companies that close their foreign offices to re-open them in the US. This would be similar to a scheme that helped with bringing some manufacturing back from overseas
alexthehurst 3y ago
> what happens when your senior engineers retire and there are no replacements prepared because it's more efficient to hire foreign senior engineers rather than onboarding and training a college grad This assumes that the overseas engineers aren’t senior or reliable? I (in the US) work with a lot of talented and dedicated overseas folks who keep me on my toes. Some of them are founding or staff level engineers of our SF-based startup.
- 88913527 3y ago
  Most lived experiences with off-shore talent are due to labor costs. There are great offshore engineers but many work for companies who aren't hiring at the top end of the local market: they're hiring off-shore to save. You get what you pay for. And that leads to impressions, even if incorrect ones.
  - bruce511 3y ago
    "You get what you pay for" is fair, but its also worth pointing out that in some places "money goes further". In my city, I can go out, eat at a steakhouse, 3 courses, with wine, 2 people, and the total bill is $30-$40 total, not each). Nice sit down restaurant, good food, linen napkins. Consequently highly skilled, senior engineers can be paid < $100k and still live like a king. If the exact same person lived in the US, or worse in an expensive part of the US, you'd pay more, probably 5 times more. Once you embrace remote work (WFH) you quickly discover this very real geographical swing in value-of-money. Of course -most- remote workers are crap. Most local workers are crap too. The remote-hiring problem is as hard as the local-hiring problem, probably harder. But the cost-savings are immense, and the long-term PR is significant. (Yeah, we're laying off 10% of support, but their all foreigners - kinda skips over the point that they're -all- foreigners to begin with) You get what you okay for, but that bag of silver you have turns into a bag of gold elsewhere.
smileson2 3y ago
[dead]
mvdtnz 3y ago
> the US is going to once again cripple one of their critical industries for short term gains, what happens when your senior engineers retire and there are no replacements prepared because it's more efficient to hire foreign senior engineers rather than onboarding and training a college grad? Even before AI improvements and Covid increasing remote work, the bar for hiring entry engineers was absurd and most startups only wanted seniors Presumably you hire more senior engineers from overseas? What, do you think American senior engineers are inherently better somehow?
- klooney 3y ago
  And then they leave and form better companies, because they understand how things work, and then US politicians are sad because their critical industries are gone.
  - thedevilslawyer 3y ago
    >And then they leave and form better companies As opposed to US employees - who are well known among the most loyal employees in the world?
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
  This is a bad-faith response.
- davidf18 3y ago
  [dead]
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
They'll just open foreign subsidiaries to hire the devs, and the US company will pay it "license fees". If market forces are net bad for the country, country must improve its game and become more competitive.

solveit 3y ago

Or just let/require them to immigrate here, and get the best of both worlds.

ponector 3y ago
Not many tech people wants to immigrate to USA. With 100k annual salary one can live as a king in LATAM or eastern Europe. Overall from my point of view life in Europe is much better than in US.
- AlchemistCamp 3y ago
  There is objective data to either support or refute this claim. Look at immigration flows from LATAM the the US and compare it with the reverse. Then do the same with eastern Europe.
  - ponector 3y ago
    And then look at the millions of devs is LATAM who never went to USA or emigrated to the EU.
    - AlchemistCamp 3y ago
      Exactly. Look at the net flows in and out of each location!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
airza 3y ago
The best of both worlds is living in western europe on a US-level salary
- subarctic 3y ago
  Why western europe and not, say, eastern europe or latin america where cost of living is cheaper?
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    Because Western Europe is, generally, not as shitty as Eastern Europe or Latin America. There is some tongue and cheek to that comment, but not much. You generally don't hear about waves of people wanting to emigrate from France or Austria to Poland or Latvia.
    - bdangubic 3y ago
      as opposed to all polish and latvian people lining up at Austrain and French border… :)
      - Terr_ 3y ago
        Given the Schengen area, I'm not sure those four countries make for a good example of anybody waiting at borders in either direction.
      - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
        Not sure if your comment was meant to be sarcastic, but basically, yes, ever since the EU instituted freedom of labor movement, and Eastern countries joined the EU, there have been overall huge amounts of labor migration from Eastern to Western bloc countries.
    - KronisLV 3y ago
      > Because Western Europe is, generally, not as shitty as Eastern Europe or Latin America. > There is some tongue and cheek to that comment, but not much. You generally don't hear about waves of people wanting to emigrate from France or Austria to Poland or Latvia. Latvian here. Life is reasonably affordable, most of the services you'd expect are available in the capital or most cities. Internet is pretty good (I pay 15 EUR for 200 Mbps up and down, could get up to 1000 Mbps for twice that, though cheaper with some providers), food is okay, rent isn't too bad in most places, went through university (both Bachelor's and Master's degrees) with no debt, healthcare is pretty good (especially with insurance), salaries kind of suck though across the board. Public transportation is pretty good, both between cities and within the limits of a city, I really don't need a car. People can be a bit colder, not really that American small talk, but are nice when you get to know them. Except for some kind of harmful cultural stuff (alcoholism, machismo, LOTS of xenophobia but perhaps due to the country's past, some homophobia/transphobia/etc., people being selfish sometimes), also can't really read news site comments here, most are very toxic, like you wouldn't believe. The weather tends to be okay in the summer, but sucks pretty badly in the winter/autumn and sometimes spring. Cold, windy, lots of overcast clouds, overall a very depressing mood, sort of. Nature is pretty though, especially if you go on a boating trip down the rivers. I reckon that other parts of Europe are probably better in many respects, but as with most places, there are positives and negatives.

pavlov 3y ago

> “treat hiring remote similarly to bringing in a visa worker or add a form of tariff like you would for manufactured products” How would this work in practice? Visas and tariffs are enforced at the borders. Where is the checkpoint for taxing foreign remote employees? Would Congress require Slack and GitHub to scan for evidence of work being performed by remote employees? If you just make a law but have no enforcement mechanism, people will find workarounds because they only have to be justified internally.

ren_engineer 3y ago
>Where is the checkpoint for taxing foreign remote employees? company payroll/tax reporting I'd assume. If payments are going to a worker in a foreign country, throw an additional tax on it to make it so there's no cost savings compared to hiring locally. That way the only reason to do it would be because you couldn't find the talent locally
- schwartzworld 3y ago
  That would be quite the tax. Developers in Europe and Asia make a LOT less than the US.
  - ren_engineer 3y ago
    that's kind of the point, you want to eliminate companies just doing labor cost arbitrage rather than hiring globally because they actually need a unique talent they can't find in the US. If that's the case, they will happily pay the premium because that person still provides ROI even at US pay rates. That's supposed to be how H1B visas work as well
    - rented_mule 3y ago
      What's to stop Apple, for example, from setting up companies all over the world that employ their people and own their IP local to the employees? Then Apple US buys / licenses products for US distribution from those companies. Massive companies have far more incentive to "engineer" their way around such laws than lawmakers have to find something without loopholes. Especially given how lobbying works in the US.

huevosabio 3y ago

Wow, you are right that we are crippling a industry with short term goals, but is the other way around. We should let them come work here. Each engineer carries a wealth of knowledge, enthusiasm and demand for other services that is very very valuable for the country. We are all better off if we let every engineer that wants to come and work in the states. Imposing tariffs on remote work would just incentivize outward migration of companies. Don't make companies choose either the US or the world, instead make the US the obvious choice.

scruple 3y ago
Have you worked closely with a remote work force from another country? I know a couple of dozen developers in Argentina who trivially rival any American counterpart and they wouldn't move here if we paid them to. Not everyone dreams of migrating to the USA.
- edanm 3y ago
  I'm sure there's lots of people who wouldn't move to the States. But it's completely untrue to think that more people wouldn't move if given a path, or even if given an easier path.

no_wizard 3y ago

I agree we seem intent on crippling ourselves, but the inverse move would likely be better, which is give tax credits for hiring US citizens on US soil that offset any savings they'd get by hiring out of the US. If you run the numbers, you can adjust individual income tax upward marginally across brackets to account for shortfalls, and it will be far less complicated to implement and enforce. This gives an incentive to keep the dollars domestic vs abroad. You may even want to give some additional tax incentives for companies that close their foreign offices to re-open them in the US. This would be similar to a scheme that helped with bringing some manufacturing back from overseas

alexthehurst 3y ago

> what happens when your senior engineers retire and there are no replacements prepared because it's more efficient to hire foreign senior engineers rather than onboarding and training a college grad This assumes that the overseas engineers aren’t senior or reliable? I (in the US) work with a lot of talented and dedicated overseas folks who keep me on my toes. Some of them are founding or staff level engineers of our SF-based startup.

88913527 3y ago
Most lived experiences with off-shore talent are due to labor costs. There are great offshore engineers but many work for companies who aren't hiring at the top end of the local market: they're hiring off-shore to save. You get what you pay for. And that leads to impressions, even if incorrect ones.
- bruce511 3y ago
  "You get what you pay for" is fair, but its also worth pointing out that in some places "money goes further". In my city, I can go out, eat at a steakhouse, 3 courses, with wine, 2 people, and the total bill is $30-$40 total, not each). Nice sit down restaurant, good food, linen napkins. Consequently highly skilled, senior engineers can be paid < $100k and still live like a king. If the exact same person lived in the US, or worse in an expensive part of the US, you'd pay more, probably 5 times more. Once you embrace remote work (WFH) you quickly discover this very real geographical swing in value-of-money. Of course -most- remote workers are crap. Most local workers are crap too. The remote-hiring problem is as hard as the local-hiring problem, probably harder. But the cost-savings are immense, and the long-term PR is significant. (Yeah, we're laying off 10% of support, but their all foreigners - kinda skips over the point that they're -all- foreigners to begin with) You get what you okay for, but that bag of silver you have turns into a bag of gold elsewhere.

smileson2 3y ago

[dead]

mvdtnz 3y ago

> the US is going to once again cripple one of their critical industries for short term gains, what happens when your senior engineers retire and there are no replacements prepared because it's more efficient to hire foreign senior engineers rather than onboarding and training a college grad? Even before AI improvements and Covid increasing remote work, the bar for hiring entry engineers was absurd and most startups only wanted seniors Presumably you hire more senior engineers from overseas? What, do you think American senior engineers are inherently better somehow?

klooney 3y ago
And then they leave and form better companies, because they understand how things work, and then US politicians are sad because their critical industries are gone.
- thedevilslawyer 3y ago
  >And then they leave and form better companies As opposed to US employees - who are well known among the most loyal employees in the world?
cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
This is a bad-faith response.
davidf18 3y ago
[dead]

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago

They'll just open foreign subsidiaries to hire the devs, and the US company will pay it "license fees". If market forces are net bad for the country, country must improve its game and become more competitive.