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Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

devonzuegel.com

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Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#161
Except:

- no country pay like the US. Worked for silicon valley companies remotely, and made twice the money I made in France, while being 3 times cheaper than local competition.

- no country have the volume of hi-level coding gig job offers the US has.

- few countries even have has many interesting projects. If you want to code in Haskell or Lisp in Europe, good luck.

- the USA don't care about your diploma, only what you can do. You will be limited in opportunities and earnings depending of your background in many countries.

- talent attract talent. It's better to work with companies already full of good devs, the colleagues are coolers, the projects are more interesting and the infra will be better. Inertia is in favor of the USA.

So no, it will break no monopoly. If anything, it will make it easier to work FOR the US.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#162
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU has a similarly sized internal market, but it's consistently self-sabotaging on many levels (EU, countries, state, local) so does not realize a lot of the benefits it could get.

Self-sabotaging in what ways?

The newest example would be Europe's Digital Services Act. Here is an article by Cory Doctorow about it: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/10/europes-digital-servic...

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#163
post #65

I don't believe the US has a monopoly on talent. The US has a monopoly on being able to go to market. US corporations are extremely efficient getting funds, putting that capital to work, and deliver a product people want to buy. Historically they got that advantage because (among other factors) their internal market is HUGE, and successful US products were also appealing in other countries. As I said there are other…

Its a winner takes all and the winners have been decided 20 years ago here in the west. You need something like what China did with a closed off garden where their own thousand flowers can bloom and grow strong enough to compete on the global market.

China has a huge internal economy. You won’t be able to replicate that in many a country. At all. You’ll end up with useless, expensive, outmoded products that seem to only ever get worse. (Speaking from personal experience.)

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#164
I don't know if this is possible considering many of the big SV companies demand their talent to be on-site. Even Amazon which has become a cornerstone of cloud hosting is basically stuck with on-site/office attendance policies. So, I really don't see remote work being the silver bullet to kill the on-site/office beast. It'll be a generational change and not simply a change due to one pandemic.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#165
All you need to do is work with a remote or offsite team once to disabuse you of this idea. It is extremely hard to make remote work...work. Also, cost savings are often negated by having to set up parallel structures in X or Y country. Suddenly your cheaper dev costs are being eaten by legal, finance and HR.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#166

Except: - no country pay like the US. Worked for silicon valley companies remotely, and made twice the money I made in France, while being 3 times cheaper than local competition. - no country have the volume of hi-level coding gig job offers the US has. - few countries even have has many interesting projects. If you want to code in Haskell or Lisp in Europe, good luck. - the USA don't care about your diploma, only wh…

On the topic of diploma - I get the sense this is not exactly true for FAANG

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#167

Except: - no country pay like the US. Worked for silicon valley companies remotely, and made twice the money I made in France, while being 3 times cheaper than local competition. - no country have the volume of hi-level coding gig job offers the US has. - few countries even have has many interesting projects. If you want to code in Haskell or Lisp in Europe, good luck. - the USA don't care about your diploma, only wh…

Yeah, I've heard about a classist element in Europe that might make the path I took unlikely. I dropped out of college, toiled in the service industry for 10 years, got sick of it, went to code school, got a tech job and 6 years later earn $130k. Still no degree. Is it true you can't do that there or is that just a stereotype?

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#168
post #166

Except: - no country pay like the US. Worked for silicon valley companies remotely, and made twice the money I made in France, while being 3 times cheaper than local competition. - no country have the volume of hi-level coding gig job offers the US has. - few countries even have has many interesting projects. If you want to code in Haskell or Lisp in Europe, good luck. - the USA don't care about your diploma, only wh…

On the topic of diploma - I get the sense this is not exactly true for FAANG

No diploma here - still have recruiters from at least 3 of the 5 messaging me.

Edit: downvoters, care to explain a little? Why would they waste their time on me if they weren't interested in me working there?

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#169
post #127

I see many people here comparing US with EU in term of wages. But for the comparation to work taxes, healthcare, education, and subsidizing several public services like transport or heating should be taken into account. Also, the comparation should take into consideration PPP. $300 000 pre-taxes in US is not 3x $100 000 after-taxes in EU. Especially if you adjust for other factors.

Also quality of life in Europe is much higher. US everything is bigger, but Europe wins for Food quality, cleanliness, crime & safety, holidays, design.

This kind of comparison makes no sense because whether quality of life is better in US or Europe depends on the US city/state vs European city/country you are comparing in each, as well as whether you're comparing someone of lower, lower middle, upper middle, or upper class.

US upper class in a wealthy area is very different from US lower middle class in another. And the same goes for Europe.

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