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Ask HN: WFH – will I be outsourced?

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

#61

Post by senko »

silisili wrote: post #28

No better or worse than before, IMO. It's a pendulum that keeps swinging back and forth. Cost cutting leads to outsourcing, which leads to reduced quality and or output, which leads to people coming in to grow and revamp, which comes back to hiring local, rinse and repeat. I'm mostly convinced great and established software engineers around the world already do well for themselves. If you're cheaping out on salaries,…

> I'd much, much, much rather have one proficient, in my timezone developer at 200k.

Yes, but do you think you'll get proficient developers on the west coast for just 200k, when unicorn startups and FAANGs pay at least twice that for great people?

For the fully loaded cost of one really good developer in the Bay Area (400k) you can get four equally good developers anywhere in Europe (I'm not even talking Eastern Europe here), who will happily shuffle their schedule to accomodate a few evening zoom calls or reply to a few mails.

The talent pool in this industry is global, and it's extremely hot everywhere, but ignoring purchasing power parity is just self-deception.

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

#62

Post by Gigachad »

moonchrome wrote: post #37
johnebgd wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve found it’s easier to outsource maintenance and harder to outsource creation of software. Cultural issues coupled with time zone changes are difficult to overcome.

You can work in the same time zone : - Mexico, South America are same time zones as US - as the other poster mentioned 75% US dev salary puts you in 1% in Eastern Europe, you will have no problem finding people with flexible work schedule adjusted to your TZ Cultural issues are a thing in terms of understanding the US market - but that's up to your PMs/POs to handle. Cultural differences in terms of work habits, etc.…

I think different people have different contexts on this. If you are an American in big tech earning the highest wage, then outsourcing could look like spending 75% and still getting top talent. But for everyone else around the world, outsourcing can only mean getting the bottom talent because they were already mid tier wages.

I’m in Australia and our company has mostly local with some outsourced devs in Indonesia and while they try hard, they universally just aren’t very experienced. And as soon as they become experienced they leave because they can now make the same wage as the Australian devs.

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

#63

Post by nitwit005 »

Remember that companies have been trying to outsource software stuff for 40 to 50 years. If they haven't managed it yet, I'm not going to give them great odds of suddenly succeeding in the next year or two.

Also worth noting that wages have had a long time to stabilize. If some county is vastly cheaper than US/EU, they are either far less productive, or there is some other major issue causing serious problems.

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

#64

Post by xeromal »

viraptor wrote: post #45
xeromal wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not propaganda though. WFH's job pool is at least your entire state, if not your entire time zone, if not your entire country. When it's in person, it's people within commuting distance. Simple as that. That being said, people overestimate the will of management to replace current employees. WFH is really more of a problem in the hiring process, not the firing process.

For larger companies the pool is already the whole state anyway. People move within the state for a good job - there's likely only 1-2 tech hubs per state anyway.

I don't think anyone was specifically talking about large companies.

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

#65

Post by around_here »

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?

Employer of Record services have solved this for about $200 - $600/worker/month. Still significantly cheaper than paying a US worker.

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

#66

Post by rafaelero »

I come from a South American country and I could see this process unfolding during COVID. Before that, I didn't have any friend working for an American software company. Now, my friends are either employed by foreign companies or they are building experience in order to do so in the future. It's been a pretty remarkable change, actually. The salaries are beyond what we imagine it would be possible to make in 20 years of career. Things are being great for us, although I doubt that doesn't have a depressive effect over American wages.

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

#67

Post by eyelidlessness »

I mean all of this with kindness and helpful intent: I think you’re asking the wrong question, and probably from a place of undeserved insecurity. Let me try to reframe it:

- Are you relatively confident that you’re talented, or delivering meaningful value, or motivated and capable of learning to do so in your role?

- If previous answer is no, do you feel comparatively competent to your peers?

- If previous answer is no, do your peers generally treat/regard you as such?

- If previous answer is yes, is it possible you’re feeling the impostor syndrome most of us do?

- Regardless of the previous answer, if you’ve come this far… is it possible you might be a better fit elsewhere?

I could start and end with that last question, but there’s value in assessing the others.

Ultimately, even if you might be replaceable by lower cost labor and even if there might be some desire to replace you… you’ll still be competing in a market where lots of people are WFH, and where employers will be competing for you even more.

But if any of the above applies, it may be an opportunity to feel more secure in your current position, or to seek a role where you do.

I’m saying this as someone who’s WFH almost all of my 20ish year career (gawd I’ve lost count I’m that old, and that’s definitely a career future concern), and even through many versions of feeling insecure about my career future I continuously come back to “yeah I might eventually not be valued or have a future here, but I’m more skilled and in demand than ever.”

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

#68

Post by xXyeasureXx »

rafaelero wrote: post #66

I come from a South American country and I could see this process unfolding during COVID. Before that, I didn't have any friend working for an American software company. Now, my friends are either employed by foreign companies or they are building experience in order to do so in the future. It's been a pretty remarkable change, actually. The salaries are beyond what we imagine it would be possible to make in 20 years…

No post body was provided.

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

#69

Post by pydry »

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.

The only way I can see that working is if QA and the dev team are in separate timezones.

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

#70

Post by aussieguy1234 »

Gigachad wrote: post #62
moonchrome wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can work in the same time zone : - Mexico, South America are same time zones as US - as the other poster mentioned 75% US dev salary puts you in 1% in Eastern Europe, you will have no problem finding people with flexible work schedule adjusted to your TZ Cultural issues are a thing in terms of understanding the US market - but that's up to your PMs/POs to handle. Cultural differences in terms of work habits, etc.…

I think different people have different contexts on this. If you are an American in big tech earning the highest wage, then outsourcing could look like spending 75% and still getting top talent. But for everyone else around the world, outsourcing can only mean getting the bottom talent because they were already mid tier wages. I’m in Australia and our company has mostly local with some outsourced devs in Indonesia an…

I've had similar experiences. The outsourced engineers work locally when they graduate from college (or sometimes, "coding bootcamp") until they get good experience and can match it with engineers in higher wage countries. Then they leave their home countries for the higher wages overseas.

The standards of education are often lower in lower wage countries. Sometimes it'll be full college, often people will just complete a coding bootcamp then call themselves a software engineer.

In other words, you get what you pay for.

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