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Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

devonzuegel.com

261–270 of 534 posts

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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they are. Having an LLC based in Texas, trying to hiring a remote employee in NYC. I have to comply with all local NYC laws and taxes. Luckily it's a developer. If it was a sales person, it could make the whole company liable for income tax in New York state. Even worse when you talk international. An Amazon USA based employee is forbidden from working remotely in India, because of all the legal issues it would…

Why don't you hire them as a contractor?

Not everyone wants to work as a contractor. It also limits the amount of control you have over their output. It also is not a complete failsafe, as the state can say you treated them like an employee, thus they are an employee.

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

#262
post #203

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…

facebook is hiring 10,000 developers in the EU to build the Metaverse. https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-plans-hire-10000... My daughter is looking to go into software engineering and I was explaining to her that most of the high paying jobs are in the US and there's a big brain drain out of Europe (we're Brits). Not to dissuade her, but that she might consider that as an option on graduation. I was specula…

They do hire in Europe but pick expensive locales such as Switzerland, London or Dublin. I can't stop wondering why not open shop in Italy or Spain - wages may be much lower with way higher life quality.

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

#263

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.

House prices are often even higher in Europe, relative to wages. Check prices in London or Paris to see: you get smaller apartments, smaller houses on smaller lots than in US, and you’ll pay larger percentage of your paycheck for them.

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

#264

In the short term, I think it's going to be a lot harder than this article lets on, but long term, it is abundantly clear: cushy developer jobs in the US are on borrowed time. Salaries may continue to go up for a little while longer, but they will fall to reflect the rest of the world catching up with the US. And that's a scary prospect for those under 35 now. And I don't think there's a way out of it. We embrace rem…

> Salaries may continue to go up for a little while longer, but they will fall to reflect the rest of the world catching up with the US.

This has never happened in US history. The upward trend has stopped. Employment outside the US has grown much faster. Other countries have caught up. But wages in large sectors haven't gone down in any sector I'm aware of. And MAGMA all have over 100,000 software engineer employees and make huge profits on them. Google makes over a million dollars per software engineer. There's a lot of room for wages to go up.

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

#265

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 rem…

28 business days of vacation per year? More than 5 weeks? I know of no company in America that offers that, not even informally.

Few US companies offer most of the benefits Europeans expect, from free/cheap health care to child care to generous maternity/paternity leave to low tuition to job security to strictly enforced equal opportunity.

Combine all of those into one employer in the US? That unicorn doesn't exist. However such beasts live all over Europe. But they just don't pay US wages, perhaps for obvious reasons.

What's more, as soon as US companies hire remotely en masse in Europe, regulators there will surely demand the same benefits & protections for their people from remote employers. This will erase the economic advantages of outsourcing there unless wages paid there are substantially lower than in the US.

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

#266
post #203

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…

facebook is hiring 10,000 developers in the EU to build the Metaverse. https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-plans-hire-10000... My daughter is looking to go into software engineering and I was explaining to her that most of the high paying jobs are in the US and there's a big brain drain out of Europe (we're Brits). Not to dissuade her, but that she might consider that as an option on graduation. I was specula…

There's also some very high paying software engineering roles in the UK, such as machine learning engineers. Of course, the salary varies from the north to the south quite a bit.

Nevertheless, you can get 100k just out of uni in an ML role! Especially if it's following a PhD.

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

#267

I am sceptical. Reminds me of the predictions 20 years ago that outsourcing/offshoring would eliminate hands-on developer jobs in US/UK and other "expensive" countries. Timezones, language factors, cultural factors, retention and exclusivity challenges plus basic logistics stuff like payroll and taxes all matter a lot. None of that's insurmountable but it takes a level of effort that can be very high. And I say this…

The payroll, taxes, and labour laws are a big barrier at the moment. Even if you are happy hiring someone as an independent contractor to simplify the first two, how do you know that you aren't breaking local laws, e.g. about disguised employment? You still have to be familiar with local laws and regulations. It seems like something that an intermediary could help with, and a few do exist, although they are pricey. S…

If you can outcompete local rates by 30%+, why would your employees complain about disguised employment?

Labour laws generally come into play when professions are poorly compensated or mistreated - pampered tech contractors being paid far above local market rate don't really fall into that category.

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

#268

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…

I don't understand the 28-day requirement since most vacation balances are divisible by 5 (5 days in a work-week). Are you counting holidays or are you getting that number from somewhere else?

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

#269
post #244

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…

> If you want to code in Haskell or Lisp in Europe, good luck. Uhh... https://trustica.cz/category/tech/racket/

Heck, even Ocaml!

https://www.lexifi.com/

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

#270
post #112

The demand for software developers and experts is a bottomless well right now in EVERY country. Hiring everywhere is a challenge. The problem is that software development is genuinely challenging. Training is a huge problem because programs can't keep up with the new technology. In the past 10 years there have been 3 separate revolutions in our technology stack and 2 in our project management. Everything is moving at…

If it really is a bottomless well everywhere, I must be doing something wrong...I just graduated from a well-regarded university in Germany with a degree in computer science and to be honest, it's not all that easy to get a job. For example, in London, as someone with no experience, you'll probably have to go with a graduate scheme--mostly at tech companies and banks. But when you apply, you'll be barraged first by c…

There is a shortage of people - with experience. A side effect of this is employers are less willing to take on less experienced staff as they lack the employees to act as mentors.

Getting my first job in tech was the hardest - but since it has been smooth sailing as I have a track record of experience & war stories to tell.

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