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

#131

Post by bob1029 » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 4:27 AM UTC

redisman wrote: post #56

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.

> I do think the global best engineers are about to get a big raise though.

It really does feel like there is a gigantic competency bubble that is about to pop.

The amount of people who are willing to learn the hard systems and businesses is dwindling by the day. You think its difficult to find airline pilots and truckers? Try to find a developer with both the domain knowledge and technical skills to fix a custom piece of code in a community bank's core system that was written in 1994. Oh, and we need it fixed before close of business or our fedwire files are going to be totally fucked...

The amount of money they will have to offer to capture the appropriate talent to keep their businesses running is going to become astronomical. The executives sometimes try to take a quick path out of this hell and usually wind up with 1 additional reason they have to stay. The most common mistake is attempting a full vertical swap-out, followed by paying some firm to explain that your shit sucks by way of installing some middleware in your infrastructure and telling you things you already know.

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

#132

Post by rsj_hn » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 4:31 AM UTC

newyankee wrote: post #126

rsj_hn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a big fan of India, I've been waiting and hoping for them to leapfrog China. But I realized it's not happening, because for some reason they don't seem so have the same state capacity to act. It's a bunch of individuals, thousands of little groups suspicious of each other, struggling to provide even basic infrastructure in their largest cities. And constant brain drain to the West. I really wish India well, and ho…

You are underestimating the scale at which infrastructure is being built in India. The bureaucracy, at least at the higher levels is much faster. Having said that, I do not believe we will leapfrog but maintain consistent growth rate. China is almost 6x our economy. I hope we reach at least a third to half their GDP in 25 years given that our populations are quite similar.

> You are underestimating the scale at which infrastructure is being built in India. The bureaucracy, at least at the higher levels is much faster.

That is good news. Do you attribute this to Modi or something else? Do you think it has been institutionalized to last after the current administration leaves?

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

#133

Post by makeitdouble » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 4:34 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #24

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…

>> 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…

> domestic management to realize where the cost savings could come from

Management has been looking at off-shoring whatever they can for the past decades already. Having a bigger pool of talent willing to work remotely is a boon, but most of the new influx is not from lower level countries (they already were 99% ok with full remote), and more from places with high level salaries.

Management will find cheaper people, but only marginally, and not that different from the people they already had. Except most of the people they will find will be the ones playing the full-remote "dangerous game" you warn about

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

#134

Post by LyalinDotCom » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 4:36 AM UTC

I wish we wouldn't allow upvoting here of articles behind a paywall, this just wastes everyone's time. And yes someone might post a link to get around the paywall but this is hurting our news industry so I cant support this as a workaround.

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

#135

Post by randomdata » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 4:37 AM UTC

outside1234 wrote: post #73

We’ve been through this multiple times and each time we discover how important communication is in software engineering. I don’t doubt that some people will be remote - but the ones that get ahead will be local - and that will draw people back.

In my experience, the office crowd generally struggles with communication. They rely on conveying the same information in a myriad of ways, over an excruciating amount of time, to get their point across. I'll admit, it is difficult to do that without the bandwidth that face-to-face provides.

When you watch effective communicators, they can write a terse comment and everyone straight up understands without any more fuss. Once you have been on that kind of team, you will never want to communicate about work any other way. Remote work is very efficient under this model.

I think everyone can be an effective communicator, but it is a learned skill. A skill those who have spent their career in an office never had to learn. Those who were recently thrust into remote work without those skills have struggled, but...

What if this forced period of remote work has tipped the scales in favour of the critical mass learning how to communicate effectively? Anecdotally, I have seen significant improvement in the formerly office-going team I have been a part of since March 2020. We have a ways to go before we match what I have witnessed earlier in my career when I was lucky enough to work with some highly effective people, but if this carries on for a sufficient amount of time I think we might just get there.

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

#136

Post by cyberlurker » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 4:39 AM UTC

LurkingPenguin wrote: post #125

EMM_386 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This is different because Covid-19 has shown to everyone that they can do their jobs remotely. And if they can do their jobs remotely, why can't an equally skilled engineer in a country with a cost of living 1/10th of the "rich…

> And if they can do their jobs remotely, why can't an equally skilled engineer in a country with a cost of living 1/10th of the "rich countries" do the same? I'm an American expat and one of the things that I quickly discovered when I left and started traveling is that skilled engineers (and designers, etc.) in countries with significantly lower costs end up figuring out how much they're worth to employers/clients i…

I’ve observed this as well, good workers are generally smart people and will figure out their worth.

I think people underestimate the demand for talent and think that globally we can fill that hole. We can’t, yet. Humans don’t scale well enough and eventually automation will be the real problem. (But I also think that is further away than currently advertised, but different topic.)

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

#137

Post by cyberlurker » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 4:40 AM UTC

hnxs wrote: post #106

EMM_386 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Citation needed. We're on HN, a technology site. Many of us have realized we can do our jobs the exact same way as we did before. I'm not talking about construction workers, police, fast food, etc. I'm not sure this needs a citation.

Many of us have also realized the quality of work is not the same when there is zero in-person collaboration

I have more often than not heard the quality is better, as in the output. Are you referring to the quality of the experience of work being worse?

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

#138

Post by bringlop » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 4:43 AM UTC

EMM_386 wrote: post #62

VirusNewbie wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. This is different because Covid-19 has shown to everyone that they can do their jobs remotely. And if they can do their jobs remotely, why can't an equally skilled engineer in a country with a cost of living 1/10th of the "rich…

> And if they can do their jobs remotely, why can't an equally skilled engineer in a country with a cost of living 1/10th of the "rich countries" do the same?

Same reasons as last decade. Time zone difference, language/culture barrier, the legal complications of hiring across jurisdictions. I don't see how any of it has been addressed by recent events or incremental improvements to remote working tools.

I think it came up in a previous thread on the topic that the non-US workers that can overcome these barriers but aren't interested in immigrating, still demand competitive US rates when working with US companies (through consultancies, iirc).

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

#139

Post by cyberlurker » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 4:44 AM UTC

bob1029 wrote: post #131

redisman wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I do think the global best engineers are about to get a big raise though. It really does feel like there is a gigantic competency bubble that is about to pop. The amount of people who are willing to learn the hard systems and businesses is dwindling by the day. You think its difficult to find airline pilots and truckers? Try to find a developer with both the domain knowledge and technical skills to fix a custom pie…

I mean, isn’t that what’s happening in general? The community banks are just switching to service providers and ditching the 1994 systems.

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

#140

Post by matchagaucho » Fri, Oct 29, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #24

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…

>> 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…

"maximum-introvert"

What seems missing from this discussion are the social connections remote workers pursue in the absence of water cooler conversations and company social events.

For many office workers, their co-workers are their main source of social interaction.

For remote workers, it's a deliberate decision to keep their social lives separate from work. They very well may be extroverts in their personal social activities.