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Ask HN: WFH – will I be outsourced?

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Re: Ask HN: WFH – will I be outsourced?

#51

Post by noodle »

Cheaper labor is cheaper for a reason. The economy is globalized enough that if you have an actually equivalent skillset, you're very likely able to pull an equivalent salary, no matter where you live.

You'll get outsourced regardless of where you work once a company is willing to take the tradeoffs that come with cheaper labor - a "worse" skillset.

There's certainly a little salary arbitrage to be had for actually equivalent skillsets, but not enough such that its worth firing someone with institutional knowledge. Usually companies will augment hiring via outsourcing or near/off-shoring, not replace people.

If a company is willing to fire you for that little amount, then (1) you were already essentially replaceable anyway in some form or another (sorry); or (2) they're making a huge blunder and perhaps their future is not so bright, so maybe its actually a blessing you have to leave?

Re: Ask HN: WFH – will I be outsourced?

#52

Post by immigrantheart »

I think the hassle of taxes alone would make most companies don't want to do it.

Let's see if Airbnb can crack this, and then a lot of other companies can and will follow.

It is good for people who are dual citizen/US permanent residence, not good for US engineers who don't have anywhere else to live other than US.

Re: Ask HN: WFH – will I be outsourced?

#53

Post by paxys »

If there was easy cheap labor standing by to replace you, it would have happened already regardless of WFH. In reality what a company gains by way of salary savings it has to spend several times over in inefficiency, communication issues, difficulties in management, loss of quality and lots more. This is exactly why the outsourcing boogieman hasn't caught up to the industry despite being talked about nonstop for literally decades now.

Re: Ask HN: WFH – will I be outsourced?

#54

Post by PragmaticPulp »

KerrAvon wrote: post #48
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a manager I was told I can hire more people outside the US and was recommended to only hire in the US if I find someone who we really don't want to pass on. In other words, top talent would be OK, everyone else would have problems. This is exactly what it turned into for us. We were encourage to hire most people outside of the US but to leave space for exceptional US candidates. It’s a hard incentive to ignore w…

But that also means you have the administrative headache of dealing with tax laws and other personnel regulations in other places — is your company large enough that it’s not a problem, or do you outsource the payroll/accounting/HR aspects?

Honestly didn’t seem that difficult. They hired HR and legal people with some experience in the matter and it was their job.

I have a feeling those HR and legal skills are going to be in high demand for a long time.

Re: Ask HN: WFH – will I be outsourced?

#55

Post by spaetzleesser »

KerrAvon wrote: post #46
x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are overly discounting time zone. Someone working remotely, but within 3 time zones, is much easier to collaborate with than someone 9-12 timezones away.

Properly managed, a team with members in multiple time zones can be enormously productive if the work is such that it can be handled in shifts. Software can actually be done this way. You have to be culturally willing to do it.

"Properly managed, a team with members in multiple time zones can be enormously productive if the work is such that it can be handled in shifts. Software can actually be done this way. You have to be culturally willing to do it."

It's horrible for the people who have to work in such a system. We have people in India and during phases where you have to collaborate a lot, either the US people or the India people have to constantly work at night. And the company demands this in addition to regular working hours. We also have people in South america and that's much better to deal with because working hours overlap during the day.

Re: Ask HN: WFH – will I be outsourced?

#56

Post by posnet »

I find it funny that with the WFH movement people some to have forgotten the lessons learned from the early 2000s outsourcing/offshoring craze.

Many companies tried to move their development offices offshore to India, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Ukraine, anywhere with significantly cheaper labour. And the first lesson these companies learned was the second you've trained a person from that area to the point that you are happy, they will quit, because now they have the skills to get hired by another multinational and leave for a more affluent pastures.

It wasn't until people realized to took more to build offshore workforces. You have to build teams of people, you have to support their families (especially is south east asia), you need to provide benefits and incentives for them to stay in their home town. But most of all you need to become part of the local community. Otherwise you will always be a naive multinational to be taken advantage of as long as it's convenient. And the intelligent and driven people, the exact people you want to hire there, all know this.

I can see the exact same thing playing out in the WFH movement, with managers proclaiming that now that they can hire anywhere they can do away with much of the support and non-financial compensation inherit to office work. But they will run head first into the same problems as offshoring. A job is more than money, especially in an creative/problem solving industry like software development (and if you disagree, you are lying to yourself), your work, your colleagues and your company shape you, (should) support and reflect on you to all future employers. Loyalty has to be earned, and if all you are doing is relying on salary for this, then your loyalty is worth the dollars between you and your competitor.

My view is that we'll settle on a bimodal steady state. With WFH first companies that put in the time, money and effort needed to support a remote workforce. And traditional office work (with maybe a bit more flexibility) going back to full time face to face. I don't think the hybrid model can work.

Re: Ask HN: WFH – will I be outsourced?

#57

Post by hilbertseries »

Mc91 wrote: post #35
x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are overly discounting time zone. Someone working remotely, but within 3 time zones, is much easier to collaborate with than someone 9-12 timezones away.

About half the US lives in the eastern time zone - so if the product manager wants to talk to an Indian programmer at 430PM India time, he has to start the meeting at 730AM Eastern time. This is the most convenient time to have the meeting usually. Another 28% of the US is in the central time zone, but that just shifts this meeting to 830AM for the product manager. The working hours don't overlap. On top of various o…

730 am est time is 630 am central time?

Re: Ask HN: WFH – will I be outsourced?

#58

Post by spaetzleesser »

charcircuit wrote: post #19
webmaven wrote: post #6

In theory, perhaps. But first consider whether the company gains value from workers sharing a time zone, language, cultural context, etc., all of which push against replacing employees with "cheaper" ones from abroad. In many ways the ideal remote first company manages to address and eliminate these constraints (eg. by adopting async communication channels) to truly enable employees to come from and work from anywher…

Cross time zone asynchronous communication is not better. Things can get delayed by days since you can fall into the trap of only being able to send a single message to them per day.

I have had multiple occasions where our India team was stuck for weeks on something despite sending daily messages back and forth. Then I called them late a night my time and could resolve the issue in a few minutes. It's funny that the same management that thinks collaboration needs everybody to sit in the same open office has no problem having workers in a timezone 12 hours off where you can never talk directly.

Re: Ask HN: WFH – will I be outsourced?

#59

Post by jounker »

vishalchandra wrote: post #13

Demand = Num of companies hiring remotely / wfh Supply = Num of people in nearly same timezone interest in wfh Currently supply >> demand, so if your company is embracing remote work, you need to now be good at your job when compared to a larger pool of people.

My current experience with hiring for remote positions says otherwise.

Re: Ask HN: WFH – will I be outsourced?

#60

Post by throwawayboise »

posnet wrote: post #56

I find it funny that with the WFH movement people some to have forgotten the lessons learned from the early 2000s outsourcing/offshoring craze. Many companies tried to move their development offices offshore to India, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Ukraine, anywhere with significantly cheaper labour. And the first lesson these companies learned was the second you've trained a person from that area to the point that you are happy…

> the second you've trained a person from that area to the point that you are happy, they will quit

Isn't this a significant problem with developers in the USA also? I keep hearing the advice to change jobs every year or two in order to keep building skills and compensation.

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