Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why • Hacker News Board

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#51

Post by leetcrew » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 3:20 AM UTC

EMM_386 wrote: post #19

Everyone should keep in mind that water seeks its own level. And think of this on a global scale. I've been working remotely for almost a decade as a senior software engineer. Now, post-Covid, almost everyone realizes they can do the same. Salaries are going to drop in the "rich world", and it's not just because people are now fleeing places like SF/SV to lower cost of living areas. We are also beginning to compete g…

I kind of agree, especially with regards to smaller companies who maybe only have one office and struggle to hire locally. being able to recruit across the whole US, let alone the whole world, is a major game changer for them.

on the other hand, it's interesting to take note of what the big tech companies are doing. for the most part, they seem to have developed an increase tolerance for WFH, but continue to invest heavily in building new offices. not sure what that says long term.

even pre-COVID, big tech companies had offices outside the US. if you could already find enough engineers worth hiring to set up an office in brazil, how much does full remote change things? either way, talent is pretty densely clustered in the biggest cities to begin with.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#52

Post by aybs » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 3:20 AM UTC

EMM_386 wrote: post #32

icelancer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> We are also beginning to compete globally, far more than ever before with the ease of remote work. Qualified engineers can be found for 1/10th of the price with "near shore" companies in the "rich world". Yep. I've said it many times here and basically anywhere I can: Clamoring for remote-only work, maximum-introvert, never fly somewhere, don't value in-person communication/meetings/etc is a dangerous game to be p…

> Yep. I've said it many times here and basically anywhere I can: Clamoring for remote-only work, maximum-introvert, never fly somewhere, don't value in-person communication/meetings/etc is a dangerous game to be playing. What's interesting is that I flew in for a meeting with my company recently, the first I've had since I've been hired. This took hours upon hours of my time. Time I could have spent working. We spen…

I’m doing something similar with my team in a few weeks, and I’d measure our in person value on a different scale than just what we produce in person together. I don’t know if this is naive, but I still feel like it’s important to celebrate our accomplishments together and if we have a chance to do that in person, even if velocity suffers and some money is spent, we get something out of that shared experience together that helps us grow and understand each other that is sometimes lost when we’re just on video calls.

Is it necessary? Definitely not. But I have the opportunity and I think it’s great to do, and great to plan together.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#53

Post by theshadowknows » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 3:21 AM UTC

EMM_386 wrote: post #42

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not. Communication is still a gigantic issue to overcome. So is managing teams and availability during the work day. If anything, it might push more really smart people to start their own companies instead of working for someone else to achieve a lesser level of prosperity.

> Communication is still a gigantic issue to overcome. So is managing teams and availability during the work day. Communication is huge but I can assure you I've worked with teams on the opposite side of the globe asynchronously without issue. The concept of "workday" can be tossed aside if we are thinking 9-5 M-F. Global teams can adjust schedules and work effectively. I know because I've managed teams like this in…

100% agree. Before my current job I worked with tons of remote teams and it was great. Even now, the majority of my interactions are with people on the west coast or offshore teams in India. My boss is in the mid west and his boss is in the south east. And so far we’re doing great.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#54

Post by jodrellblank » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 3:21 AM UTC

schoen wrote: post #26

lastofthemojito wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many different flavors of remote (and remote-ish) work. Lots of people (especially those who don't do remote work) think of remote work as "work wherever you want, whenever you want", but in reality there are often limitations. Employers generally care about what jurisdiction you live in so they can comply with tax law, etc. Some employers don't care where you're at as long as your long-term residence is…

> I've heard of some US Government workers who are allowed to work from home, but only from home. Ostensibly for cybersecurity reasons, they aren't allowed to work from hotels, cafes, airports, WeWorks, etc. I first thought that this didn't make so much sense, because you could just use a VPN. But this might be only partly because of network insecurity. It could be more because you have so little control over your ne…

I have wondered about the idea of shared rent-a-workspace, and what that does to security and regulatory compliance and how many CIOs have conniptions over it.

Would you feel OK if you called up your bank to sort out a problem with your account, and they were opening all your account details on a laptop in a coffee shop or WeWork office shared with all sorts of people? If you were a normal employee raising an issue with HR and they were doing that? If you were Apple, or high up in a company behaving like them and trying to keep projects secret and your employees were doing that?

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#55

Post by VirusNewbie » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 3:21 AM UTC

EMM_386 wrote: post #19

Everyone should keep in mind that water seeks its own level. And think of this on a global scale. I've been working remotely for almost a decade as a senior software engineer. Now, post-Covid, almost everyone realizes they can do the same. Salaries are going to drop in the "rich world", and it's not just because people are now fleeing places like SF/SV to lower cost of living areas. We are also beginning to compete g…

I've been hearing this argument for 20 years. I was doing ASP/Perl programming while I was in high school in 2000, and I remember being told that I need to move into management because soon all the jobs would be offshored to India.

Then in 2008 when the economy crashed I had one bizdev guy tell me that pretty soon everyone was going to be able to code with these new 'no code apps' and that I was going to be a fossil and I should move into management.

Then in 2012 people talked about how many brilliant chinese programmers there were and how all the jobs were going to be outsourced to china.

I think about this sometimes, because while I did have a successful stint as a team lead, now i'm just a senior SWE. Things have turned out pretty well so far. I've only seen salaries go up.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#56

Post by redisman » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 3:23 AM UTC

EMM_386 wrote: post #19

Everyone should keep in mind that water seeks its own level. And think of this on a global scale. I've been working remotely for almost a decade as a senior software engineer. Now, post-Covid, almost everyone realizes they can do the same. Salaries are going to drop in the "rich world", and it's not just because people are now fleeing places like SF/SV to lower cost of living areas. We are also beginning to compete g…

Ok so we’re back to offshoring as a silver bullet. Consider me extremely skeptical having lived through the last offshoring scare. I do think the global best engineers are about to get a big raise though.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#57

Post by judge2020 » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 3:23 AM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #40

icelancer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> We are also beginning to compete globally, far more than ever before with the ease of remote work. Qualified engineers can be found for 1/10th of the price with "near shore" companies in the "rich world". Yep. I've said it many times here and basically anywhere I can: Clamoring for remote-only work, maximum-introvert, never fly somewhere, don't value in-person communication/meetings/etc is a dangerous game to be p…

> " [0] Huge salaries to them being a high-five figure salary. " CheckSalary.co.uk puts the average salary for "a programmer" in the UK at £43K, Reed.co.uk says £41k, Glassdoor says £35K, Payscale says £31K... maybe devs here should upskill in English? https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/programmer-salary-SRCH_...

programmer is very vague, and glassdoor does show the jobs bringing that down as php/web development, which is highly saturated and competitive.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#58

Post by silisili » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 3:24 AM UTC

tjr225 wrote: post #45

notadoc wrote: post #36

Now the developed world will compete with the developing world to lower wages in the developed world. The high salaries and perks for many USA tech jobs may not last much longer. No need for companies to pay more for premium locations / perk offices. No need for companies to deal with the hassle of H1B visas. From a company perspective, why pay someone in the USA $165k/year to work from home in Trendyville when an In…

Have you worked with someone in Bangalore? No offense my Bangalore homies, but I’ve only had bad experiences. Same with Bulgaria. Weird communication issues and bad work. This was especially the case in customer facing work. Ive had better experience with people in the NL but still obvious communication issues, bad experiences with Australia and Asia. For better or for worse(I think worse) engineering culture is heav…

In my experience, you get what you pay for there.

The problem is, most companies who offshore are being cheapskates, and go bottom barrel. Then we Americans who work with them are thinking 'wow, people from country X are terrible programmers.'

But not universally true. Amazing talent exists in India for example, but they command much higher prices.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#59

Post by wpietri » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 3:24 AM UTC

tjr225 wrote: post #45

notadoc wrote: post #36

Now the developed world will compete with the developing world to lower wages in the developed world. The high salaries and perks for many USA tech jobs may not last much longer. No need for companies to pay more for premium locations / perk offices. No need for companies to deal with the hassle of H1B visas. From a company perspective, why pay someone in the USA $165k/year to work from home in Trendyville when an In…

Have you worked with someone in Bangalore? No offense my Bangalore homies, but I’ve only had bad experiences. Same with Bulgaria. Weird communication issues and bad work. This was especially the case in customer facing work. Ive had better experience with people in the NL but still obvious communication issues, bad experiences with Australia and Asia. For better or for worse(I think worse) engineering culture is heav…

For sure. And it works the other way too. I was consulting on project building a microfinance accounting system. All the initial target users were in India. Having the developers there made sense because they understood the context better and could easily go visit users. I found it frustrating to try to be useful from the US and the time zone differences were a giant pain, so I eventually just went there for a few weeks. Same deal for the product manager; she was US based but would go there for something like 1 week in 4.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#60

Post by theshadowknows » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 3:25 AM UTC

hogFeast wrote: post #29

extr wrote: post #17

I always see a lot of hemming and hawing in these threads but it's impossible to underscore just what a HUGE boon remote work is for people who don't want to or can't live in Tier 1 cities like SF or NYC. My career has taken on an entirely new trajectory. Prior to the pandemic I worked at two different companies over 6 years. Since the start of the pandemic I've changed jobs 3 times and my TC has almost tripled. Ther…

I was forced to torpedo a previous career because a relative got sick, and then I got sick...moving to the city wasn't a good idea but the only choice in that industry, so I had to move on (I grew up in the city in question, utter hellhole, commutes are horrendous, I would have moved because I loved the work but that was all). Obviously, I have a biased perspective but what frustrated me wasn't the loss to my own car…

My wife has a chronic, expensive, difficult to manage, and unpredictable health condition. Having to leave her to be in an office when I’ve been doing great work from home is a show stopper for me. And I’m always upfront about that with employers, I get some companies have an on-prem mentality and I’m respectful of that. But it doesn’t work for me, so I’m not trying to waste their time or mine. And my current employer while I regularly complain about the logistics of working in a gigantic enterprise has been very respectful of our situation and hasn’t once ever made me feel like I’m slowing down or underperforming because of it. So long as I keep making the company money and they keep paying me, neither of us cares where the other sits.