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I was always surprised that the "remote work boosters" rarely considered the double-edged sword they were rooting for. If your job can be done remotely, why pay

I was always surprised that the "remote work boosters" rarely considered the double-edged sword they were rooting for. If your job can be done remotely, why pay you American-level salaries if the job can be done just as well with LatAm or European-level salaries? I've worked with fantastic engineers from Argentina, Poland, Ukraine, etc. and since everyone is on Zoom anyway, them being remote makes no difference (this was not the case prior to about 2015 or so, when video conferencing got good enough), and they all adapt to US time zones. I've seen lots of CEOs announce layoffs and plug how AI is making them so much more efficient, but I think the reality, besides previous over-hiring in general, is that it's much easier to find and utilize high quality offshore talent. I know some managers at Google who say they have drastically reduced junior engineer hiring in the US (and obviously they had layoffs at Google), while still hiring in lower cost countries. Be careful what you wish for.

rawgabbit 1y ago
> "I've worked with fantastic engineers from Argentina, Poland, Ukraine, etc. and since everyone is on Zoom anyway, them being remote makes no difference". If so, why do companies constantly demand increases to the H1B quota? Why do you need to bring developers into the US as H1B and all we're doing is Zoom meetings anyways?
- monster_truck 1y ago
  Charitably, because the developers they wish to hire want to be in the US. Uncharitably, because it's an excellent form of leverage and control
- esseph 1y ago
  Leverage. If they get fired they get shipped right back to their home country. They can abuse the hell out of them, make them work exceptionally long hours or under insane pressure and demands, and absolutely get away with it because the employee has extremely little recourse. They can't complain.
  - zeroCalories 1y ago
    I don't think this is entirely true. Generally the positions in low cost areas are low-pressure work. Infra, internal tools, etc. You still want your top talent nearby and in office.
    - esseph 1y ago
      We're talking about H1-B tech workers. And infrastructure is low pressure? Damn I wish my blood pressure knew.
      - zeroCalories 1y ago
        Yes, top talent at these companies include h1b. And yes, infra is low pressure. If the engineers don't do an amazing job, or the timeline slips a little, it's a minor hiccup. If your product is mediocre, or ships late, you risk losing everything. You don't need top talent for the former, you do for the later. And you prefer to have top talent working next door, for various reasons.
        esseph 1y ago
        When infrastructure automation goes sideways at a large company, especially a large company with tens/hundreds of thousands of VMs goes sideways, or large network infrastructure changes, it is not a fun day. Millions in damage can happen very quickly, and not even from the tech outage, but potentially loss of Operational Technology for Real Businesses and Orgs that do things. Think about chemical manufacturers, or large manufacturing plants. Think about shipping ports and airlines, and railways. Think about Internet Service Providers, hell - think about Starlink, they were just offline for a botched infrastructure change. I'd say that had some major impact around the world. Infrastructure is not about managing an App, it could be about managing thousands or tens of thousands of apps, and potentially for decades. So yeah, sure. You're right. You don't need talent to run infrastructure, I guess. Millions in damages can happen very quickly though, so, maybe... Think about it. I know a lot of software engineers that I wouldn't trust to run my infrastructure changes.
no_wizard 1y ago
Except thats not what happened? There wasn't a great offshoring by companies. Its been driven by return to office mandates, not due to offshoring of jobs. This has everything to do with executives exerting control because for the first time in a long long time labor had managed to make small gains
- newsclues 1y ago
  What we are seeing now is reduction of the workforce because cheap capital is less freely available. The question remains whether future hiring will be changed. It’s entirely possible that local jobs will face the pressure of low cost global remote workers and what pools of workers will be sought for remote workers.
deadbabe 1y ago
The premise of your argument relies on the idea that engineers are commodities, and any engineer is easily replaced with another engineer for similar results. Unfortunately (for you), some engineers are just better than others. The right engineers on your team can make or break your company. It can mean the difference between being first to market with innovative game changing solutions, or putting out a shitty product filled with defects and poor design choices. And experience has consistently shown that the best engineers tend to be American or American educated. So yea, you can hug your fantastic offshore engineers tightly and treasure them. But the fact is if they are as good as you say, they should easily be commanding higher salaries that justify the kind of ROI they bring to a company. Why go cheap on the salary for an engineer who could 10x your revenue? If they're not being paid those high salaries, then you're exploiting them. And worse: they can easily be poached by competitors who offer to pay them twice as much as you, leaving you with the problem of finding new hires again.
- hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
  > The right engineers on your team can make or break your company. Wholeheartedly agree with that. > And experience has consistently shown that the best engineers tend to be American or American educated. I call total bullshit on that one. I agree the culture of many Americans and American companies (e.g. taking ownership, more comfort with risk-taking/failure, willingness to speak up when things go sideways, etc.) contributes a great deal to American companies' success, and I've seen some instances of other cultural aspects being a direct negative - for example, I worked with some great engineers in India, but they would often tell me everything was going great right up until a deadline, when they'd then let out all the problems - there was clearly a cultural aspect at play that prevented acknowledging problems early. But when it comes to raw engineering chops, it has not been my experience that American engineers are any better. Sure, many of the best engineers would come to the US because the potential rewards were greater, but we're seeing the impact of America's (or at least the current administration's) newfound distain for foreigners.
- Ray20 1y ago
  >Unfortunately (for you), some engineers are just better than others. Yes, and most of these engineers are not in the US and are cheaper than engineers in the US. The only reason engineers in the US have jobs is because employers, for one reason or another, believe that in an office environment under their constant supervision, workers work more efficiently. When they stop believing this, engineers in the US will not work remotely, they will lose their jobs.
tristor 1y ago
As a "remote work booster" who has been remote since 2015, I have absolutely no problem with a company hiring engineers and other staff in other countries at a lower rate, as long as they're hiring people who are competent. Some of my most enjoyable work experiences were on fully remote teams that crossed numerous national boundaries, because we were focused on competency above all-else. In many cases, it didn't even save the company money (good people cost a lot, regardless of where they happen to be located). I have never seen any evidence that remote work increased offshoring, and it makes perfect sense why that would be the case. Almost all offshoring done by large companies is a /cost-cutting measure/, it is absolutely not about trying to find the best people regardless of where they are. Most of that off-shoring is to lower cost employees (regardless of competence, or in most cases incompetence) who work in an office in another country. RTO + Offshoring is a combo made in hell (but beloved by corporate executives) and basically nonexistent in remote-first companies.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
msgodel 1y ago
Why isn't the company there already? America is not the cheapest nor friendliest place to run a business and if there's cheap labor in a foreign country that could substitute for us why not move the business there? Or alternatively, why are there no foreign startups built with this cheap labor competing with our employers?
- esseph 1y ago
  Because that's where the owner class is.
  - msgodel 1y ago
    Sorry I thought we were talking about the software industry. It's software. PP&E doesn't matter. If you want the role of the "ownership class" there's a link at the bottom of the page you're looking at just for you. EDIT: Can't reply right now but you're arguing my point for me.
    - esseph 1y ago
      You realize there's also a lot of racism and xenophobia that plays into this too, yeah? It's easier for some to care less about people that don't have the same accent or clothes or common background. And the US has a lot of financial liquidity. Hence, you'll get a lot of people starting companies in the US while the ICs are remote - also where many of the buyers are likely to be of your product.
    - zeroCalories 1y ago
      Top talent in low cost areas are not significantly cheaper than in high cost areas, but they offer far greater risk. Most companies want to keep the core product work, where they're competing hard, near themselves.
hurrrr 1y ago
This is a bit naive. Why are the same companies that do RTO starting to replace SWE in the US with counterparts in India/Poland/Romania?
Daishiman 1y ago
Outsourcing has been happening since the late 90s and back then there was already chat and global conferencing with software-defined phones. The global job market remains the mostly same: top talent gets paid top dollar globally. A lot of first-world markets command a particular premium and incentivize immigration. Some people will not move no matter what but will still get very high salaries. A lot of offshoring fails. The offshoring that works isn't newsworthy and nobody hears about it. A lot of software that gets shipped is crap.

rawgabbit 1y ago

> "I've worked with fantastic engineers from Argentina, Poland, Ukraine, etc. and since everyone is on Zoom anyway, them being remote makes no difference". If so, why do companies constantly demand increases to the H1B quota? Why do you need to bring developers into the US as H1B and all we're doing is Zoom meetings anyways?

monster_truck 1y ago
Charitably, because the developers they wish to hire want to be in the US. Uncharitably, because it's an excellent form of leverage and control
esseph 1y ago
Leverage. If they get fired they get shipped right back to their home country. They can abuse the hell out of them, make them work exceptionally long hours or under insane pressure and demands, and absolutely get away with it because the employee has extremely little recourse. They can't complain.
- zeroCalories 1y ago
  I don't think this is entirely true. Generally the positions in low cost areas are low-pressure work. Infra, internal tools, etc. You still want your top talent nearby and in office.
  - esseph 1y ago
    We're talking about H1-B tech workers. And infrastructure is low pressure? Damn I wish my blood pressure knew.
    - zeroCalories 1y ago
      Yes, top talent at these companies include h1b. And yes, infra is low pressure. If the engineers don't do an amazing job, or the timeline slips a little, it's a minor hiccup. If your product is mediocre, or ships late, you risk losing everything. You don't need top talent for the former, you do for the later. And you prefer to have top talent working next door, for various reasons.
      - esseph 1y ago
        When infrastructure automation goes sideways at a large company, especially a large company with tens/hundreds of thousands of VMs goes sideways, or large network infrastructure changes, it is not a fun day. Millions in damage can happen very quickly, and not even from the tech outage, but potentially loss of Operational Technology for Real Businesses and Orgs that do things. Think about chemical manufacturers, or large manufacturing plants. Think about shipping ports and airlines, and railways. Think about Internet Service Providers, hell - think about Starlink, they were just offline for a botched infrastructure change. I'd say that had some major impact around the world. Infrastructure is not about managing an App, it could be about managing thousands or tens of thousands of apps, and potentially for decades. So yeah, sure. You're right. You don't need talent to run infrastructure, I guess. Millions in damages can happen very quickly though, so, maybe... Think about it. I know a lot of software engineers that I wouldn't trust to run my infrastructure changes.

no_wizard 1y ago

Except thats not what happened? There wasn't a great offshoring by companies. Its been driven by return to office mandates, not due to offshoring of jobs. This has everything to do with executives exerting control because for the first time in a long long time labor had managed to make small gains

newsclues 1y ago
What we are seeing now is reduction of the workforce because cheap capital is less freely available. The question remains whether future hiring will be changed. It’s entirely possible that local jobs will face the pressure of low cost global remote workers and what pools of workers will be sought for remote workers.

deadbabe 1y ago

The premise of your argument relies on the idea that engineers are commodities, and any engineer is easily replaced with another engineer for similar results. Unfortunately (for you), some engineers are just better than others. The right engineers on your team can make or break your company. It can mean the difference between being first to market with innovative game changing solutions, or putting out a shitty product filled with defects and poor design choices. And experience has consistently shown that the best engineers tend to be American or American educated. So yea, you can hug your fantastic offshore engineers tightly and treasure them. But the fact is if they are as good as you say, they should easily be commanding higher salaries that justify the kind of ROI they bring to a company. Why go cheap on the salary for an engineer who could 10x your revenue? If they're not being paid those high salaries, then you're exploiting them. And worse: they can easily be poached by competitors who offer to pay them twice as much as you, leaving you with the problem of finding new hires again.

hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
> The right engineers on your team can make or break your company. Wholeheartedly agree with that. > And experience has consistently shown that the best engineers tend to be American or American educated. I call total bullshit on that one. I agree the culture of many Americans and American companies (e.g. taking ownership, more comfort with risk-taking/failure, willingness to speak up when things go sideways, etc.) contributes a great deal to American companies' success, and I've seen some instances of other cultural aspects being a direct negative - for example, I worked with some great engineers in India, but they would often tell me everything was going great right up until a deadline, when they'd then let out all the problems - there was clearly a cultural aspect at play that prevented acknowledging problems early. But when it comes to raw engineering chops, it has not been my experience that American engineers are any better. Sure, many of the best engineers would come to the US because the potential rewards were greater, but we're seeing the impact of America's (or at least the current administration's) newfound distain for foreigners.
Ray20 1y ago
>Unfortunately (for you), some engineers are just better than others. Yes, and most of these engineers are not in the US and are cheaper than engineers in the US. The only reason engineers in the US have jobs is because employers, for one reason or another, believe that in an office environment under their constant supervision, workers work more efficiently. When they stop believing this, engineers in the US will not work remotely, they will lose their jobs.

tristor 1y ago

As a "remote work booster" who has been remote since 2015, I have absolutely no problem with a company hiring engineers and other staff in other countries at a lower rate, as long as they're hiring people who are competent. Some of my most enjoyable work experiences were on fully remote teams that crossed numerous national boundaries, because we were focused on competency above all-else. In many cases, it didn't even save the company money (good people cost a lot, regardless of where they happen to be located). I have never seen any evidence that remote work increased offshoring, and it makes perfect sense why that would be the case. Almost all offshoring done by large companies is a /cost-cutting measure/, it is absolutely not about trying to find the best people regardless of where they are. Most of that off-shoring is to lower cost employees (regardless of competence, or in most cases incompetence) who work in an office in another country. RTO + Offshoring is a combo made in hell (but beloved by corporate executives) and basically nonexistent in remote-first companies.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

msgodel 1y ago

Why isn't the company there already? America is not the cheapest nor friendliest place to run a business and if there's cheap labor in a foreign country that could substitute for us why not move the business there? Or alternatively, why are there no foreign startups built with this cheap labor competing with our employers?

esseph 1y ago
Because that's where the owner class is.
- msgodel 1y ago
  Sorry I thought we were talking about the software industry. It's software. PP&E doesn't matter. If you want the role of the "ownership class" there's a link at the bottom of the page you're looking at just for you. EDIT: Can't reply right now but you're arguing my point for me.
  - esseph 1y ago
    You realize there's also a lot of racism and xenophobia that plays into this too, yeah? It's easier for some to care less about people that don't have the same accent or clothes or common background. And the US has a lot of financial liquidity. Hence, you'll get a lot of people starting companies in the US while the ICs are remote - also where many of the buyers are likely to be of your product.
  - zeroCalories 1y ago
    Top talent in low cost areas are not significantly cheaper than in high cost areas, but they offer far greater risk. Most companies want to keep the core product work, where they're competing hard, near themselves.

hurrrr 1y ago

This is a bit naive. Why are the same companies that do RTO starting to replace SWE in the US with counterparts in India/Poland/Romania?

Daishiman 1y ago

Outsourcing has been happening since the late 90s and back then there was already chat and global conferencing with software-defined phones. The global job market remains the mostly same: top talent gets paid top dollar globally. A lot of first-world markets command a particular premium and incentivize immigration. Some people will not move no matter what but will still get very high salaries. A lot of offshoring fails. The offshoring that works isn't newsworthy and nobody hears about it. A lot of software that gets shipped is crap.