Remote work means anyone can take your job • Hacker News Board

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#151

Post by wolco » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #136

gregkerzhner wrote: post #132

Real time, remote communication through tools like zoom, slack, and lucidchart (in my humble opinion) has been solved. It might take some getting used to, but in the right environment a group of properly motivated individuals can achieve the same productivity as their peers in a conference room. Asynchronous communication across timezones has not been solved, and I struggle to see how it would be. A lot of collaborat…

> Real time, remote communication through tools like zoom, slack, and lucidchart (in my humble opinion) has been solved. It might take some getting used to, but in the right environment a group of properly motivated individuals can achieve the same productivity as their peers in a conference room. What is not solved, of course, is how a remote-only employee can build trust and relationships with peers. In my opinion…

Through projects? I'm working remotely and it's the same as in person. First few months is about everyone feeling each other out once you understand more you give people more trust in those areas.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#152

Post by jobsmusk » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

cameronbrown wrote: post #11

There's some serious irony that traditionally globalist brogrammer types are now whining about outsourcing (to "poorer" areas, or other countries). You guys didn't care when it was happened to blue collar workers, and then go and rag on Trump voters who didn't see any other way out. Then there's the other faction that doesn't understand basic economics and expects Bay Area pay from Bangladesh so they can live like a…

I wouldn't conflate SV elitists with "brogrammers". It wouldn't be too far to say a programmer is today's blue collar worker. So, you're fighting your own "bros".

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#153

Post by arcticbull » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

antishatter wrote: post #144

gregkerzhner wrote: post #132

Real time, remote communication through tools like zoom, slack, and lucidchart (in my humble opinion) has been solved. It might take some getting used to, but in the right environment a group of properly motivated individuals can achieve the same productivity as their peers in a conference room. Asynchronous communication across timezones has not been solved, and I struggle to see how it would be. A lot of collaborat…

When I was at Intel, they had outsourced graphics driver development to Panang. Within a year they had created a large number of US jobs for folks who had to rebuild the work from Panang and validate/test/fix any new working coming back from Panang. There is a difference between a cheap foreign engineer without formal training and a trained domestic engineer. Anyone who thinks every type of labor can be outsourced to…

> There is a difference between a cheap foreign engineer without formal training and a trained domestic engineer.

IMO there's no difference between a trained domestic engineer and a trained foreign engineer. Foreign vs domestic isn't a meaningful difference.

However. Existing tech hubs got their cachet for having the best and the brightest, which in turn draws in the best and the brightest. Companies have to pay more for talent on average in hubs because the talent has self-selected for a high concentration of great folks.

That doesn't mean there isn't an assortment of great folks elsewhere who just didn't feel like moving, but IMO, more than likely, the majority of the great folks are already in tech hubs. I think the risk is overstated.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#154

Post by downerending » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #126

GnarfGnarf wrote: post #111

Everyone would have to sit two meters apart, which means two times the square feet No... it's four times the square feet.

four pi times the square feet?

Hmm. Could use hex packing, but still need aisles. And there are probably fire escape regulations.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#155

Post by tomg » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

hopia wrote: post #51

vcanales wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my totally unscientific assessment of remote job boards, US companies seem to be the only ones requesting US-only applicants, and I have no insight as to why this happens. In my -South American- country the trend is to look outwards if you're hiring remotely; European countries seem to fit this description too.

I've made the same observation. Does it have something to do with US tax or other regulations?

It's my understanding that if a US company wants to hire someone outside of the US to work remotely from outside of the US; they must treat the employee as an independent contractor.

Additionally, the US company would have to abide by any local labor laws / tax laws in the country they are hiring in.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#156

Post by josho » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #129

I had this same fear a few years back. I don't have any notable personal projects on GitHub and my skills are pretty standard (Full Stack .NET) these days. I don't even have a degree. Nothing really stands out in my resume that screams "hire this person". I figured I would hardly get a response when applying to remote companies let alone an offer. The competition is surely way more qualified than I am. Furthermore I…

I appreciate your short term perspective, and agree with you that today remote work doesn't have these fears. However, the author is thinking about a longer time horizon.

As an example, with agreements between Canada/US and similar culture it would be very easy for your company to start hiring remote workers in Canada. Suddenly due to currency differences their salaries are 30% cheaper, and with a strong social safety & gov. subsidies likely even cheaper for similar talent.

Then some time later after your company has had success with some international workers they branch out farther and hire a few juniors from South America in the same time zone. Repeat this cycle over the next decade and now salaries have been eroded even for high paying information workers.

I'm starting to feel globalization is a race to the bottom for everyone but the owners.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#157

Post by colinmhayes » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #124

Let’s flip this around. If [anyone] can take [your] job, then it stands to reason that remote work means I can take someone else’s job. But what would this mean for me? First off it would mean doing all the same work to prepare myself as a candidate. Take Machine Learning for example, which is my area. I need to prepare my resume based on my current projects. I need to brush up for nauseating leet-code hazing trivia…

Maybe the people in Kansas won't be taking a pay cut, but workers who were previously limited by immigration laws would definitely be happy to. Indians speak english, Mexico and a handful of other central/south american countries are in the same time zone as the us. People in those situations would be incredibly happy to work for half of what you make now. There are definitely problems with hiring those people, but your argument that supply won't expand is incredibly naive.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#158

Post by dominotw » Thu, May 28, 2020, 4:00 PM UTC

roosterdawn wrote: post #35

> What globalization did to manufacturing jobs, remote work will do to many service jobs. This is bait. It's taken as a given rather than a hypothesis to be proven, which invalidates most of this post for me. Issues with the analogy: - Offshoring existed before remote work was popularized. For the many of "your jobs" up to be "taken" that shift has already occurred. - Outsourcing is not a magic bullet. Timezone gaps,…

> Offshoring existed before remote work was popularized. For the many of "your jobs" up to be "taken" that shift has already occurred.

This is different though, because those companies weren't 'remote' so offshoring is not viable without that prerequiste.

But if company goes 'remote' much more work becomes outsourcing worthy.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#159

Post by delfinom » Thu, May 28, 2020, 4:00 PM UTC

gregkerzhner wrote: post #132

Real time, remote communication through tools like zoom, slack, and lucidchart (in my humble opinion) has been solved. It might take some getting used to, but in the right environment a group of properly motivated individuals can achieve the same productivity as their peers in a conference room. Asynchronous communication across timezones has not been solved, and I struggle to see how it would be. A lot of collaborat…

>I still think the Facebooks and Googles will pay a lot more - someone has to be the "top dog" attracting the top talent. The question is, how much more?

They will pay more. But Facebook has already announced they'll readjust salaries to people who work from home in lower COL areas.

Re: Remote work means anyone can take your job

#160

Post by eloff » Thu, May 28, 2020, 4:00 PM UTC

gregkerzhner wrote: post #132

Real time, remote communication through tools like zoom, slack, and lucidchart (in my humble opinion) has been solved. It might take some getting used to, but in the right environment a group of properly motivated individuals can achieve the same productivity as their peers in a conference room. Asynchronous communication across timezones has not been solved, and I struggle to see how it would be. A lot of collaborat…

I've worked for Swiss companies from the west coast of North America (9 hours difference). It's not perfect, but I started early and they kept an eye on slack until late. Most of the time we communicated in the couple hours of overlap we had.

It works because as a developer it's a plus to have multiple hours of good focus time with no meetings or interruptions. Plus we can cover each other for pager duty so nobody has to normally wake in the middle of the night.

I think remote work greatly increases the circle of people you're competing with. I don't recommend trying to be remote only unless you're world class - because the world is technically your competition.

That said there are lots of reasons most people in Vietnam or India are not actually in competition with me. Being able to communicate fluently in English and divine requirements from non technical people who don't know what they want is still the most important part of the job. You can be the best programmer in the world, but if you can't do that, you'll just build the wrong things beautifully and ahead of time.

Then there is the trust issue. People need to know they can trust you with their code, customers, and business. That's a challenge if they've never met you in person. It's a bigger challenge if you live in the developing world - maybe that shouldn't be true, but it is. I had more trouble getting jobs when I lived in Panama.