I heard that same thing in the 90' about outsourcing. Adapt or be gone.
And those warnings proved to be true for a bunch of people. Kind of the point, isn't it?
Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs
151–160 of 165 posts
Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually don't disagree with you but I think there are some nuances that I should clarify. I'm not pro-exec nor super laissez faire, etc. but at the same time I don't think the target of our ire should be our fellow workers in other parts of the country or other countries. I don't know if unions or something else is the answer to this but trying to exclude other workers from getting opportunities seems wrong, espec…
I guess I find the being “not pro-exec” etc to be contradictory to: “ If someone can do what I do here in SV for half the price or less but do it just as well or even better but else where in the world, I don't feel how I'm entitled to my current salary.” That - to me - is pro-exec talk because at the end of the day… advocating for lower wages is going to go to no one except the execs. I don’t mind having more people…
Yeah that's a fair point; I can see what I wrote can be read that way. What I really should have wrote is that me and my fellow engineers in SV shouldn't be the only ones holding these jobs and earning these salaries. Tech companies are among the most profitable and can afford to hire more and pay those engineers the same wages as they do in SV.
Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs
#153If someone can do what I do here in SV for half the price or less but do it just as well or even better but else where in the world, I don't feel how I'm entitled to my current salary. It's a bit hypocritical for us to bemoan this when software engineers in SV also automated people in other industries out of jobs. People outside of SV, outside of tech, and the US are people too. Don't they also deserve a chance at pr…
> I don't feel how I'm entitled to my current salary No one is entitled to anything. It is purely about protecting your bargaining power. Tech peeps should learn from Doctors/AMA. If you aren't vigilant about your privilege, others will be too happy to take that power away from you and enrich themselves. See who benefited from outsourcing manufacturing to China - only the outsourcing companies and Chinese middle clas…
Doesn't this largely improve the american middle class? Most remote workers will still come from the US but from places like Kansas or Ohio.
Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
“People have been worried about this since the 90s. But it hasn't stopped compensation from increasing dramatically.” Software devs a few years out of university in places like Atlanta and Boston made 100k 20 years ago. How much more do they make now? Not much more. You must be thinking like a myopic Silicon Valley FAANG fan.
I was actually a fresh college grad a little over 20 years ago, and I can tell you we were not making even close to $100K. Maybe a few who lucked into Microsoft or SGI or something, but not the vast, vast majority. My first salary was $45K with no stock, back in 1998, which felt absolutely amazing and already put me far above the median US worker.
The inflation calculator says that would be $74,317.64 in today's dollars. Not too bad.
Also, in '96, it was a standard joke on sgi.bad-attitude about the interchangeability of stock and toilet paper.
I'm not sure that anyone who got options from SGI in the late 90s made a profit on them.
I'll also note that making $45k at Taos (doing tech support at SGI), I was making more than my father was at the time.
Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> companies that are unwilling to hire across language or timezone boundaries Companies might still be reluctant to hire across language or time zone boundaries. It might be explicit, but more likely it'll be less conscious resistance among interviewers and attrition among the "odd ones out" themselves. The result's practically the same. And if the bulk of the team is in US/Pacific, then same time zone doesn't includ…
South America is an obvious choice for anybody concerned about time zones.
But you have language issues. Canada could supply 5% but salaries are about the same.
Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs
#156I think one reason why wages might not decrease is communication speed. My team works with folks in Europe and Singapore, and while the asynchronous communication works and we love our teammates the time delay can be killer. Worse, if you do need to speak realtime you need to hop on meetings at odd hours. Who wants to do that? It might be cheaper, but if cost reduction was a factor I feel like we’d already have done…
The point is that your ENTIRE team will be in Europe or Singapore so there will be no time delay between them ... the US team/person will be the odd man out
Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs
#157People have been worried about this since the 90s. But it hasn't stopped compensation from increasing dramatically. Demand for software work is only increasing. The more software we create, the more valuable marginal software becomes. The total number of software engineers has doubled every 5 years for a long time. Of course that won't continue forever but there's no reason to think it will stop very soon either. For…
“People have been worried about this since the 90s. But it hasn't stopped compensation from increasing dramatically.” Software devs a few years out of university in places like Atlanta and Boston made 100k 20 years ago. How much more do they make now? Not much more. You must be thinking like a myopic Silicon Valley FAANG fan.
> Software devs a few years out of university in places like Atlanta and Boston made 100k 20 years ago.
I've never worked in Atlanta or Boston but that does not sound right. Unless those cities were paying well over Silicon Valley salaries back then. Which I doubt.
20 years ago I was in Silicon Valley, already with a handful of years experience, at a top company and certainly not making 100K yet. Maybe I was super underpaid but according to the salary bands (which the company published) I was somewhat over the median.
The SV compensation explosion first into the mid 100s and then into the stratosphere started later than that. In the late 90s into the dot com bust, software engineering was a well paying job but nothing special compared to other professsional jobs.
Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have two takes, one the substance of your comment, and another the format it takes. First, the substance: Of course not. It's healthy to analyze the pros and cons of any significant change to a system. We're definitely in the rose-colored-glasses part of WFH. There will absolutely be negative consequences. My main argument is that given the current supply of tech workers vs. demand for tech workers, and the likelih…
Well, to rephrase my idea in declarative form, my concern is that by the time that trend becomes apparent, it may be too late to do anything about it. Developers have more leverage now than when they're no longer needed. Of course there isn't any real call to action being made here so maybe it doesnt matter in that sense. And full remote still does not seem to be what most employers are looking for.
Yeah, that's definitely a risk. I just think we're far enough from that at the moment that it's premature to do much besides acknowledge that it could happen at some point.
I'm really curious to see whether or not wages actually end up rising for everyone because of WFH. Up to now, employers have been able to use location and either cost of living or cost of labor as the argument for paying people less than in the Bay. That's starting to fall apart in the current market, which will push wages higher everywhere. All of the sudden, the Bay needs to pay every higher to convince people to move there.
I'm not convinced that'll be the outcome, but it wouldn't surprise me once the labor market becomes a lot more liquid. The kind of multiples software development brings to a business is just so much higher than current salaries
Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs
#159Your arguments really need a jump in logic to be accepted. They also completely fall apart when you realize two things: Offshoring has been happening for decades. H1B abuse has been happening for decades. Yet salaries rose.
I explained the big difference this time here ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27697067 )and here ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27697088 ) Summary: outsourcing was never really going to work due to collaboration hurdles. Current model is to replace one US-worker at a time with a non-US-worker from the same timezone. Much more effective and much more lethal to US workers.
I think your argument both proves my point and contradicts yours.
You assert that collaboration hurdles stops outsourcing. A point that I do not agree with, but if it was true, to outsource one person at a time requires remote collaboration tools between two teams that honestly wouldn't be that much more different than WFH to train and collaborate.
Once again, you assert a lot of things without providing evidence besides your own testimony that is what your current employer is doing and your experience that in-person teams are more effective.
I could assert my own experience dealing with open offices being too noisy to program in, in-building construction, employees making office chatter around you, or senior engineers needing to fly out to attend events, investor meetings, or sales; and you have to collaborate by zoom anyway.
You also treat other countries legal, language, and cultural barriers as if they are not material. And trust me, they are.
Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't feel how I'm entitled to my current salary No one is entitled to anything. It is purely about protecting your bargaining power. Tech peeps should learn from Doctors/AMA. If you aren't vigilant about your privilege, others will be too happy to take that power away from you and enrich themselves. See who benefited from outsourcing manufacturing to China - only the outsourcing companies and Chinese middle clas…
Doesn't this largely improve the american middle class? Most remote workers will still come from the US but from places like Kansas or Ohio.
How do we measure this? Quality of health care available for MC today as opposed to 30 years ago? Quality of education? Home affordability? Cost of living? I thought in the US all these had declined in the last 30 years (in adjusted terms) - i dont know if outsourcing is what caused it though.