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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

#381

Post by sethammons »

bagacrap wrote: post #193
dboreham wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a greater proportion of it will go to taxes Is this true? Taxes in the US are pretty high if you have a high income, and remember to include state and local taxes, and property taxes. > the things you get in return, like pensions or healthcare aren't as attractive at that income level Perhaps, but it's also attractive that _other_ _people_ get those benefits because ultimately the level of stress everyone else is u…

I've looked into this and it seems the biggest difference is where the brackets are. They're much higher in the US, even if the marginal tax rate for high earners in California is not much lower than Germany.

curious, did you then add medical insurance in? My understanding is that at the highest marginal rates, the two countries are similar, but then you consider that those in the US are also paying additional health insurance premiums.

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

#382

Post by coldtea »

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…

>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.

Not a problem for foreign companies that can and do pay "like the US", because they compete globally.

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

Well, in that aspect, the US wont compete with each country one by one, but by the volume of hi-level coding gig job offers in all of them combined.

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

StandardChartered is a British bank - and one of the main Haskell employers (it's not like they are many). There are lots of others. Eiffel (France), Smalltalk is used by several European companies in different places, and I see a comparable number of companies using Common Lisp in Europe as in the US ehre: https://common-lisp.net/lisp-companies

And, in any case, even in FAANG 99% of programmers don't do Haskell or Lisp, so the point is moot.

>- 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.

Yeah, inertia the US has :-)

On the other hand, momentum is in favor of Asia and Africa...

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

#383

Post by ramesh31 »

coldtea wrote: post #382
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…

> 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. Not a problem for foreign companies that can and do pay "like the US", because they compete globally. > - no country have the volume of hi-level coding gig job offers the US has. Well, in that aspect, the US wont compete with each country one by one…

>Not a problem for foreign companies that can and do pay "like the US", because they compete globally.

Do they really though? How many non-US companies are paying $150k+ to mid level front end developers? I don't think that exists anywhere else.

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

#384

Post by digianarchist »

lamontcg wrote: post #217
kelnos wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The "worst" I see happening is some US tech jobs will go to Canada, since the time zones are "compatible" and culture is similar. People from Central and South America will get in the game somewhat as well, but I still think cultural and language barriers cause enough problems that there's still a bit of a moat. We've already been offshoring to Asia and Eastern Europe for decades now, and even though we shoul…

time zones are probably the biggest issue i see coming up. as someone in PST/PDT with a sleep disorder, its pretty easy to work with east coast people. i've had a boss in the UK before and it worked because he was okay with ending his day with a 6pm meeting his time. but working with people on india time is going to be a mess one way or the other.

I work for a remote-first company and our team is spread across three timezones. It's a PITA.

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

#385

Post by gonehome »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #272
echelon wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it will make the US more powerful economically and make its tech companies more dominant. Which is exactly what it will do. Why wouldn't other nations react accordingly? What power does the US have to stop this? 1) Other nations increasingly have a large supply of high-skill talent. 2) Other nations will use capital and subsidies to launch their own tech firms employing their own workers. There are startup accelera…

The US has the tech companies MASSIVE wealth to stop this. It is all well and good to subsidize local tech companies, but for a majority of junior/senior devs you can't compete with $250K/yr in pay from FAANG companies whose stock won't stop rising and whose name on resume basically sets you up for life (exaggerating, but its not that far from the truth for a non-US and even US developers) Your third point doesn't ma…

Europe undervalues their engineers - and it seems like it's some sort of cultural thing that favors management. Their tax structure isn't great either, there's a reason zero billion dollar companies were founded in Europe (with the possible exception of Spotify). There's also the cultural pessimism and ambition being 'uncool' - there's a similar thing in Australia/New Zealand (at least I've heard from immigrant friends that moved from there). The 'tallest poppy gets chopped down' basically the opposite of the American idiom 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease'.

Even outside of Europe places like Toronto don't operate with the right investment mindset to actually create wealth: https://alexdanco.com/2021/01/11/why-the-canadian-tech-scene...

American optimism and ambition, really valuing engineers, generous equity and culture are a big part of this. Companies outside of America have been losing talent because they've been fucking this up, I expect things to get worse for them as geography is even less of an issue for working for American companies than it already is.

Devon is basically making this point, but the title is confusing. It's not the US companies that will lose the monopoly on talent, it's the US geography. The US companies will increase their monopoly.

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

#386

Post by sumedh »

ubermonkey wrote: post #324

I mean, maybe? We had an offshore subsidiary in India. The problems with it were LEGION. 1. The key issue was overall quality. I'm sure it's possible to get good code out of an offshore team, but we couldn't. Their contributions to our code base comprise the lion's share of the technical debt we're carrying. 2. Time. Working asynchronously is really, really hard, even without any other issues floating around. I would…

> I'm sure it's possible to get good code out of an offshore team, but we couldn't.

That depends on the salary, how much were you offering?

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

#387

Post by coding123 »

cblconfederate wrote: post #322
speby wrote: post #319

No no no no. Let's go down the list, shall we. Remember, COVID or not, remote work trend accelerating or not, things have not changed as much as they seem: * People STILL want to migrate to the US and it will remain one of the top choices. People move her for economic/job opportunities, sure, but that's not all. * Outsourcing (or hiring remote teams in remote offices), as well as setting up remote and international o…

I think the realization people had through the pandemic is that a very large part of the western world is equally livable. Apart from economic opportunity, what else is there on US soil that makes it comparably preferable? And i think you re forgetting that the US has been outsourcing its manufacturing to china for decades, and china is , what 15 hours difference? Most of work is asynchronous I think the US has nothi…

But it's good for exactly who they are - the management. As long as Americans are replaced time and again, it changes the US. We used to care for each other. I think the fact that the greed machine is so precise and backstabbing and self-documented and codified there's nothing to tell it to stop hiring people outside the US simply for cheaper labor.

I keep seeing people say that the economy is not a zero sum game - but all I see is people getting poorer and offered worse jobs with fewer benefits.

I think however there is ONE potential out: Building HOMES. It seems that the people that DO have a really high paying job is willing to pay 1M for a 2 bedroom house. I think the next major thing is for people to pick up the hammer and build houses for rich people wanting their second and third home. Next change for the laws? Make it easier to get a Gen-Con license...?

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

#388

Post by gonehome »

ramesh31 wrote: post #383
coldtea wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Not a problem for foreign companies that can and do pay "like the US", because they compete globally. > - no country have the volume of hi-level coding gig job offers the US has. Well, in that aspect, the US wont compete with each country one by one…

>Not a problem for foreign companies that can and do pay "like the US", because they compete globally. Do they really though? How many non-US companies are paying $150k+ to mid level front end developers? I don't think that exists anywhere else.

Yeah - I'd be surprised. I hear European salaries are at best ~100k maybe ~120k and that's pretty much maxed out a decade in. Day 1 silicon valley devs do better than that.

150k is also out of date for mid-level FAANG total comp today. I hear it's more like 600k and goes up from there.

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

#389

Post by 5revive »

Canadian Company: Our upper bound is 90k American, you get no equity, you have to work Eastern Time Zone US Company: Our mid bound is 200k American, you get equity, you have to be available +/- 4 hours from the time zone of your core team for 3 days a week.

Its not even close. And if we are talking about raising money - just lol. Canadian VCs treat their investment like they are buying into a 200 year old insurance company for a check in the 50k range.

Turning around a company / industry culture away from a 1950s factory model is very hard, and its even hard for companies who allegedly want to compete against SV firms.

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

#390

Post by ramesh31 »

jaegerpicker wrote: post #245
EugeneOZ wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the USA don't care about your diploma, only what you can do That's a total bullshit, unfortunately. Everything else is correct.

Now a days, it's very much true. I've worked for FAANG companies, a number of mid-major sized tech/internet companies, have had a engineering job for 20+ years, been a CTO and co-founded a VC backed company. All without any degree, in fact in the 20+ years in the field I've never once been out of work. Early in my career I was rejected a couple of times for lack of degree but I can't even remember the last time I was…

>I've worked for FAANG companies, a number of mid-major sized tech/internet companies, have had a engineering job for 20+ years, been a CTO and co-founded a VC backed company. All without any degree, in fact in the 20+ years in the field I've never once been out of work.

Things are very different now than they were 20, or even 10 years ago. It used to be that people coming into this field did it out of passion and interest in the work, and accordingly the talent pool was fairly small and someone with a bit of knowledge and aptitude could get a shot.

Now it's just seen as a lucrative career like Law or Business, and so CS has become the number one major at many US universities these days. We are facing an absolute glut of new grads. And if you're trying to compete for an entry level job without a degree now, you're pretty much out of luck.

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