I'm earning 6 figures in central Europe working remotely for the Americans. Local corporations can't match that let alone beat it. I'm cheaper than U.S. resources, yet a lot more experienced and productive. I'm happy and the employer is really, really happy. If anything remote work solidified US strong hold on IT talent, not broke it.
Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent
341–350 of 534 posts
Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent
#342Except: - 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.
Imagine being so bad at your chosen career, a career so in demand that there are serious efforts to expand the talent pool to a wider variety of people, that you are afraid that those efforts will cost you your job.
Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
>no country will restrict their own citizens from working for a foreign company This might surprise you, but some countries manage to achieve something like that. In Austria for example, if you go freelance (self employed) you'll actually end up paying more tax than being a FTE (which has already one of this highest taxes in the EU) while losing all the benefits of being a FTE like PTO, overtime and such. So yeah, tu…
> In Austria for example, if you go freelance (self employed) you'll actually end up paying more tax than being a FTE (which has already one of this highest taxes in the EU) while losing all the benefits of being a FTE like PTO, overtime and such. This is the case everywhere in Europe. I don't know if it's a literal policy meant to discourage this or it's just that freelancers are easy political targets since they te…
>This is the case everywhere in Europe.
It definitely isn't. In most of Eastern Europe, freelancers pay peanuts in taxes in order to attract foreign investment. Which is why there tech sectors boomed so much in the last couple of decades to the point devs in Poland or Romania can take home more than their counterparts from richer countries like Austria. Granted, they also get no benefits, but when you take home several times the average national pay, you can actually afford to buy a decent house and maybe fund your own early retirement if you're good at investments.
>I don't know if it's a literal policy meant to discourage this or it's just that freelancers are easy political targets since they tend to be disorganized/disunited.
I think it's a bit of both. Trying to force your local talent who's education was taxpayer funded to only work for and support local business, instead of helping build another nation's champions (remote brain drain). A short sighted move in my opinion which just suppress wages and produces no local champions thanks to shit wages and a lack of opportunities.
Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
The North American equivalent is Latin America. I’m in consulting, and every new project has some set of near shore resources billed much lower than their North American counterparts. In most cases the only discernible difference is proficiency in English.
I remember after "corralito" a lot of US companies started opening their CoE (center of excelence) in Argentina because wages were really low, and they could hire easily. I heard (not sure if it is true) people wanted to be paid in USD because car loans were denominated in dollars rather than pesos.
>I heard (not sure if it is true) people wanted to be paid in USD because car loans were denominated in dollars rather than pesos.
Wikipedia says that 60% of bank loans in neighboring Uruguay are in US dollars, so I am not surprised to hear that about Argentina, a country that has for years had an unofficial "blue dollar" exchange rate with the US$ (https://www.coha.org/blue-dollar-black-market-the-illegal-ex...>) that is very, very different from the official one.
Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure what you are claiming. You probably won't get $300k in the EU, but if you do, a greater proportion of it will go to taxes - the things you get in return, like pensions or healthcare aren't as attractive at that income level. While US healthcare is very expensive, it's a service, which means it's tied to how much you pay, and not defined as a percentage of your gross income. If you make that much money, y…
at that pay level in Europe you are almost certainly not going to social healthcare because in most of them you will not get the same level of service as in private hospital and will lose more time. so u usually end up paying the healthcare and using it only in extreme circumcises. there is Switzerland where that is different.
> at that pay level in Europe you are almost certainly not going to social healthcare
Even if you do, for anything more serious, especially emergency, you still use the public health care. And you won't get a massive bill because an ambulance brought you to an out-of-network hospital.
The private healthcare is for regular outpatient care and, as such, substantially cheaper than the cost of insurance in US + all of the co-pays, coinsurance and out-of-network bills.
Source: EU citizen in the US since 6 years.
Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, I understand that might be a factor. However, this still invalidates the point that whites are the most privileged group. If we take second/third-generation indians, they, on average, would be wealthier than most whites. Does this mean they are more privileged? I think yes
"However, this still invalidates the point that whites are the most privileged group." No one made that point. And yes, it's true, if you look at certain much smaller demographic groups you can find groups that are somewhat more economically advantaged than white men.
The only alternative explanation of such wealth difference is that these "white males" are objectively better at it. That's why I mentioned privileges
Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
at that pay level in Europe you are almost certainly not going to social healthcare because in most of them you will not get the same level of service as in private hospital and will lose more time. so u usually end up paying the healthcare and using it only in extreme circumcises. there is Switzerland where that is different.
Please look up where the US ranks in healthcare quality globally before trying to denigrate other countries' health services. (hint: it ain't good)
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Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I looked into Paris and the 19th looks very reasonably priced and apex civilized to me. (I've walked all over it.) A two bedroom for say €2000-2500/m with easy access to the Metro. Am I wrong? I was surprised when I looked at the prices, maybe my sources are inaccurate. But then I discovered Montpellier :-), half as expensive. I've lived in Atlanta, Phoenix and SF/MV/Santa Clara, and no, none of those come close to t…
Ah ah ah, €2000-2500/m in France is crazy expensive.
In Nice, I would pay 1100€/m for the same thing, and that's also considered an expensive city.
In my current country side town, I pay the ridiculously low price of 300€/m for a 3 bedrooms flat. Now that's the lower end of the spectrum, because it's a very poor deep country side village.
But yeah, some devs start their career at 2400€ a month as a salary :)
Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
at that pay level in Europe you are almost certainly not going to social healthcare because in most of them you will not get the same level of service as in private hospital and will lose more time. so u usually end up paying the healthcare and using it only in extreme circumcises. there is Switzerland where that is different.
Im from Germany and was insured privately during my childhood and my parents still are. The public healthcare system is just as good, you have less stress with doctors using you to earn good money but have to wait sometimes longer for getting an appointment (which still is pretty fast in the international comparison)
> you have less stress with doctors using you to earn good money
This is the most significant and initially intangible difference between US and EU healthcare. It takes a while to realize that in the US you are a source of money and a cost at the same time. At literally every step of the treatment process, everyone you meet will make it clear, either straight up or through an extreme efficiency, dehumanizing the whole process and leaving little room for a holistic approach to medicine, which is still predominant in the EU. The doctors in latter will actually spend time with you and if they figure problem is elsewhere, send you off to another specialist. In contrast, you and your insurer will be milked no matter what in the US.
Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent
#350I 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…
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.
The differences in languages, culture, and legal aspects mean that at least for consumer-oriented startups EU is very much not a single market yet. There has been a lot of progress over the last decade or two, but when starting a company you still pretty much start with the market of a single country and have to do a bunch of work, adjustments and local hiring to expand to a neighboring EU country.