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GCCs are expanding in Canada, Ireland, Poland, Czechia, and Costa Rica as well. Indians are more visible, but salary expections have gotten extremely out of wh
by alephnerd 1y ago
GCCs are expanding in Canada, Ireland, Poland, Czechia, and Costa Rica as well.
Indians are more visible, but salary expections have gotten extremely out of whack in the US, and extended WFH during COVID proved to most boards that companies can continue to operate when entire teams are communicating async.
If a large portion of interns and NCGs in the US are essentially expecting $45-70/hr salaries, it just isn't sustainable especially when factoring the growing skills deficit because universities failed CS students to a certain degree over the past 10 years by watering down programs in a short term bid to compete against bootcamps.
If we are paying Bay Area salaries, we expect performance comensurate to that salary. Basically, all companies are now starting to adopt the Netflix model of hiring in the US.
- alecco 1y agoAre they investing tens of billions in new offices in those non-Indian countries? My other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45867014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45867014
- alephnerd 1y agoYes. (Still in process of generating the list) Poland [0][8] Ireland [1][2] Czechia [3][4] Canada [5][6] Turkiye [7] The expansion of Indian offices is a result of the reverse brain drain that accelerated during the early COVID layoffs along with the EB1/2 backlogs - a number of Staff and above Engineers, EMs and above, and Sr PMs and above who were on work visas were either cut or given the option to relocate to India and start a hub office. A similar trend happened in other countries, but India being so large means they get overshadowed. [0] - https://www.gov.pl/web/primeminister/google-invests-billions-in-polands-digital-future https://www.gov.pl/web/primeminister/google-invests-billions... [1] - https://www.amd.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-6-20-amd-announces-plan-to-invest-135-million-to-expan.html https://www.amd.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-6-20-amd... [2] - https://enterprise.gov.ie/en/news-and-events/department-news/2022/may/2022_05_24.html https://enterprise.gov.ie/en/news-and-events/department-news... [3] - https://www.itpro.com/business/cato-networks-announces-major-european-r-and-d-expansion https://www.itpro.com/business/cato-networks-announces-major... [4] - https://www.onsemi.com/company/news-media/press-announcements/en/onsemi-selects-the-czech-republic-to-establish-end-to-end-silicon-carbide-production-for-advanced-power-semiconductors https://www.onsemi.com/company/news-media/press-announcement... [5] - https://www.reuters.com/business/lyft-open-toronto-tech-hub-deepening-push-beyond-us-market-2025-10-16/ https://www.reuters.com/business/lyft-open-toronto-tech-hub-... [6] - https://www.connectcre.ca/stories/amazon-plans-toronto-office-expansion-vancouver-tower-opening/ https://www.connectcre.ca/stories/amazon-plans-toronto-offic... [7] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/uber-invest-200-mln-turkey-technology-centre-ministry-says-2025-10-31/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/uber-invest-200-ml... [8] - https://news.microsoft.com/pl-pl/2025/02/17/microsoft-announces-a-pln-2-8-billion-investment-in-cloud-and-ai-infrastructure-skilling-and-cybersecurity-in-poland/ https://news.microsoft.com/pl-pl/2025/02/17/microsoft-announ...
- alecco 1y ago[0] no concrete number, and wording implies intent in the order of 1 billion total [1] only $135 Million [2] only 1,300 new employees (over 6,000 current); meanwhile "Apple India leases [...] likely to be one of the largest single-tenant office leases in [Bengaluru]" https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/apple-india-leases-2-7-lakh-sq-ft-of-office-space-in-bengaluru-likely-to-be-one-of-the-largest-single-tenant-office-leases-in-the-city/articleshow/123356485.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/app... [3] Never even heard of Cato Networks, and no figures. So irrelevant. [4] onsemi manufacturing $2bn, not relevant as this is manufacturing numbers (Apple India is expanding multiple times that) [5] No numbers, 2,934 employees. Mentions increment 20% of local market and an acquisition. Not relevant. [6] Amazon plans 8,500 employees in the two [Canadian] cities. Meanwhile "Amazon to invest $233M to strengthen India operations network" https://www.aboutamazon.in/news/operations/amazon-to-invest-usd-233-million-expand-operations-2025 https://www.aboutamazon.in/news/operations/amazon-to-invest-... (OTOH: they are laying off 800-1000 in India, out of over 15,000 desk employees just in Hyderabad) [7] Uber to invest $200 mln in Turkey. Peanuts compared to the billions in my links. From your submissions it seems like you are Indian or something.
- gedy 1y ago> but salary expections have gotten extremely out of whack in the US, You mean cost of living and inflation has devalued the dollar.
- alephnerd 1y agoLondon has a similar CoL as San Francisco yet tech salaries are around 33%-50% what are offered in the Bay. Same with Toronto. On top of that, both the British and Canadian governments give some degree of tax subsidy and regulatory support, though not to the degree that India, Israel, Poland, Czechia, or Romania provide. Why should I pay Jeff from NCSU a US$175K TC in RTP when I can get Jane who chose to return to Toronto after living in the US working for large companies throughout her 20s? A lot of techies on HN really underestimate the amount of reverse brain drain that happened during and after COVID. The COVID layoffs in early-mid 2020 primarily targeted those on some kind of work visa, and a number of those laid off were given the option to take a pay cut but also open a node in their home country. Edit: can't reply so replying here > I hear this, but the fact is a 70% pay cut in the Bay Area would simply not be workable at all This is why we began opening offices in RTP, Denver, Chicago, NYC, etc in the 2017-22 period because we could pay closer to London or Toronto salaries back then in those offices and we had state level support. All of that went to the wayside after COVID because a large portion of our workforce reverse braindrained, and someone in RTP demanding WFH and a Bay Area salary in a metro where CoL is comparable to Fresno and where we had to spend significant amounts of capital in commercial real estate to unlock tax benefits is ridiculous. We are fine paying high salaries and TC, but it needs to be justified by actually high tier talent. Think the Netflix model.
- gedy 1y agoI hear this, but the fact is a 70% pay cut in the Bay Area would simply not be workable at all. You don't just cut out Starbucks and Amazon junk.
- _heimdall 1y agoYeah I'm surprised to hear London has a similar cost of living to San Fransisco. I wouldn't expect someone working in tech in SFO today to be able to stay there at 33-50% of their current salary.
- evantbyrne 1y agoI was making $50/hour fresh out of college back in 2014. And I worked remotely. $45/hour today is not great given the cost of living.
- alephnerd 1y agoLondon and Toronto have a similar CoL as the Bay Area and $45/hr is a mid-career tech salaries in both Greater London and GTA. Edit: can't reply but every single white collar job provides an employer healthcare plan that is equally as competitive as the public healthcare plans in Canada and the UK. And especially if you were being paid $50/hr as a new grad in 2014. Edit 2: > And I was in Michigan. All the more reason I would have pushed back severely. It's easier to find talent at scale in London or GTA - metros there have a population larger than the entire state of MI, and with a breadth of options beyond UMich Ann-Arbor.
- evantbyrne 1y agoLondon and Toronto give people healthcare. And I was in Michigan.
- monero-xmr 1y agoThe vast majority of jobs in America give healthcare. The quality is vastly superior to London and Toronto, although we pay far more (and our medical professionals are upper middle class rather than middle / lower class). However this is a huge hidden portion of salary that most are not aware of, about $25k for a family of 4, which increases labor costs greatly. On sheer metrics of access and quality, America kicks the shit out of Europe and Canada
- flir 1y agoSo, uh... how come you die younger?
- hunterpayne 1y ago
- nabbed 1y agoSorry for being dense. What are GCCs and NCGs? I guess GCC night be Global Capability Center?
- alephnerd 1y agoGCC - Global Capacity Center, basically instead of outsourcing to WITCH or EPAM, a company creates an entire office abroad that owns profit-loss, product roadmap, has executives present, and is a direct part of the company. NCG - New College Grad You ain't dense btw, it's a good question. Keep asking questions!
- bossyTeacher 1y agoSo GCC is basically a subsidiary in another country?
- alephnerd 1y agoPretty much. The big issue with outsourcing to WITCH or EPAM was you were essentially paying $30k-50k per head but getting the lowest tier of talent becuase those companies would pay around $5k-15k salaries to maximize their margins. As such, companies decided to just open offices in India, Poland, Czechia, etc to poach talent in those countries because people are only productive if well remunerated, and remove the middle man out of it. Ofc, the traditional Indian outsourcing companies like TCS [0] and HCL [1] have also begun pivoting away from Software outsourcing towards becoming end-to-end chip design companies, Infosys pivoting to becoming an end-to-end MedTech company [2], and Wipro becoming an aviation and defense manufacturer [3][4] because of a mix of Indian government subsidizes and Taiwanese, Japanese, and American FDI. [0] - https://www.tataelectronics.com/semiconductor-foundry https://www.tataelectronics.com/semiconductor-foundry [1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-approves-hcl-foxconn-joint-venture-semiconductor-unit-2025-05-14/ https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-approves-hcl-foxco... [2] - https://www.infosys.com/services/engineering-services/insights/kaleidoscope-innovation.html https://www.infosys.com/services/engineering-services/insigh... [3] - https://wiproaerospace.com/ https://wiproaerospace.com/ [4] - https://www.wiproinfra.com/ https://www.wiproinfra.com/