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Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

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

#221

Post by wolverine876 »

The software development job market doesn't even encompass large parts of the US labor market, such as women, black and brown minorities, and poor communities. It's not suddenly going to open to the entire world.

The education system and opportunities in the latter create very little chance that those kids will grow up to work for Google. I've had CS teachers in the magnet schools - these classes should be the top CS high school students in the district - ask me to donate old broken computers to work on. When the pandemic started and home schooling became a need, I read that some poor districts discovered that 50% of their students lacked a computer at home - their only Internet connection was via phone. I've had employers tell me that (a few) kids didn't know how to use a full-sized keyboard. Think how far that is from becoming a developer; think of the vision required and the obstacles they would have to overcome.

You need more than an Internet connection to have an opportunity to become a software developer, or for any job.

(Writing that makes me think: A development environment designed for beginning developers using phones might give some of these people one piece of the puzzle. Vim isn't so great on a phone.)

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

#222

Post by emteycz »

ABeeSea wrote: post #202
bwb wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very fair salary, especially when you take into account they have real health care, real social safty nets, etc.

My annual max out of pocket cost for healthcare is $5,000. Once I pay the $5k, everything else for free for the rest of the year. How is that worth a $100-200K salary difference?

It's not worth it. They also forget to mention that in most EU countries you pay ~30% of your income before taxes for healthcare (in addition to taxes). By my calculations, average software engineer pays 10x more for healthcare in EU than in the USA - in absolute numbers.

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

#223

Post by a_t48 »

twox2 wrote: post #174
a_t48 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Do you / have you ever worked at one?

I've interviewed at Google twice - passed once, declined continuing the process due to not being super interested in the product. I've declined interviewing at Facebook/Amazon. I haven't talked with Netflix nor Apple. I have not worked for one, but have never gotten any indication that the lack of diploma would be a problem. I gather that a decade of professional experience makes the lack of diploma irrelevant.

As best as I can tell the only time it has hurt me is when I tried to emigrate out of the US and was unable to as some countries require a degree to get a work visa, even with a job offer.

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

#224

Post by BiteCode_dev »

thriftwy wrote: post #207
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #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 wh…

USA is super expensive. Yes you can get a large paycheck, wait until you see house prices. Also current situation does not inspire confidence in somebody who may be identified as white male.

It's really expensive, yes. But honestly, another significant part of it is that the way of life of some americans is crazy.

I'm considered a spender among my peers, and even I am amazed when I discuss with american friends, watching the money they throw away.

Most of them have huge food budget: they never cook and eat outside all the time. They have so many recurring payments for so many services. They spend tons money to refund a student load for a degree they never finished, or a mortage on a car or credit cards fees. Cigarets, alcohol, weed, then various kinds of meds.

Some of them have several generations of console, one PC, and changed their phone every 2 years for the last decade.

When I visited the USA with my father (he worked for an airline), we always ended the trip with flipping through garbages in nice neighbourhoods. Once we found a printer. Another time we found a tennis racket.

So when they tell me they are having a hard time with money, it's not easy to be compassionate.

I know there are people working 3 jobs, living paycheck to paycheck and eating junk food to survive. But they are not coders in the valley.

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

#225

Post by adventured »

evancox100 wrote: post #175
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #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 wh…

The point isn’t that existing companies in the US or wherever will lose talent, but that the existing companies might retain or even gain talent, and that the workers will reside in locales other than the US. Your points seem to be in favor of the author’s argument that the importance of physically residing in the US will decrease, and that there is an opportunity for other locales/governments to attract remote worke…

The parent's premise is that it will make the US more powerful economically and make its tech companies more dominant. Which is exactly what it will do.

The local tech labor supply will go to work for US corporations, which pay better than most everyone else. That will cement the US hegemony globally in tech (the sole major exception being domestic China, and to a far lesser extent domestic Russia). The US tech juggernaut will buy up the world's talent without having to plant expensive offices everywhere; that will occupy the talent pool and reduce competition to US tech.

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

#226

Post by wesnerm2 »

lmarcos wrote: post #216

As a developer working in Europe, I would love to work for an American company and make 30 to 50% more. But, it's difficult: - I don't really want to adapt myself to their timezone. Perhaps 1 or 2 or hours of shift from my tz, but not more - I don't want to work as a contractor. I want to be an employee - I want at least 28 business days of vacation per year - I do 9 to 5. No more, no less. I'm not in my 20s anymore…

You should not make any assumptions about work in the US. There's many American software companies that are able to fulfill your requirements.

In many tech companies, you have "unlimited" vacation. You can probably take more vacation that you already get in Europe. This is true of my company, mParticle.

I can work 9-to-5 as an employee. That is the culture of the company that I work for.

People can choose to work remotely or in an office.

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

#227

Post by krisoft »

mistrial9 wrote: post #204
Gene5ive wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I started a conversation with a visiting EU PhD and asked about programming languages. In a very good smelling way, he avoided the question. Apparently it is "blue collar" work to do actual programming? This one PhD did zero actual programming, apparently.

> Apparently it is "blue collar" work to do actual programming?

Let’s not build up cultural myths from a passing conversation. Of course there are PhDs in Europe who code and code very well. There are also ones who don’t. Was the PhD even in a Computer Science related field?

And not to offend you, but many people have better things to do than talk about programing languages. Maybe the visiting PhD had more interesting topics on their mind?

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

#228

Post by twox2 »

a_t48 wrote: post #223
twox2 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you / have you ever worked at one?

I've interviewed at Google twice - passed once, declined continuing the process due to not being super interested in the product. I've declined interviewing at Facebook/Amazon. I haven't talked with Netflix nor Apple. I have not worked for one, but have never gotten any indication that the lack of diploma would be a problem. I gather that a decade of professional experience makes the lack of diploma irrelevant. As be…

My anecdotal data is that I went really far in the process with a FAANG, got a verbal offer, and it was rescinded (never got the official offer). I always suspected it was due to lack of a degree.

And no one explicitly ever asked, but they did ask for a rather detailed work/education history, and I never claimed to have one.

I really suspect that they SAY they don't care if you have a degree or not, but at the end of the day I think they do.

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

#229

Post by sbacic »

0xy wrote: post #107
bwb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they are, like I said their pay is perfectly fine and kinda blown away you think it isn't. I don't understand what the complaint is on pay as they are making great money. What is the specific complaint you have or that you see? This is text based comments, inferring attitude is a huge black hole of impossibility :)

Why is it okay to be paid $100,000 for the exact same job as your equivalent counterparts in the US make 3.5x for? That's millions if you save the majority for retirement. It could be the difference between nursing homes and an independent travel-filled retirement at a reasonable age. Of course, I'm not here to make decisions for anyone. And people have personal reasons to not pursue immigration, that's fine. They're…

> Why is it okay to be paid $100,000 for the exact same job as your equivalent counterparts in the US make 3.5x for?

I'm not going to say it's okay, but there are a few things to keep in mind. The most obvious is that salaries are not determined so much by how productive the employee is but by the relationship between supply and demand.

But that's not the really interesting part. The interesting part is that when you factor in taxes and CoL, you might be earning less gross but walking away with more money after paying taxes and living costs.

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