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Tech Industry Warns That More Remote-Work Jobs Are Headed Out of U.S.

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Re: Tech Industry Warns That More Remote-Work Jobs Are Headed Out of U.S.

#61

Post by MontyCarloHall »

I agree with many of the comments saying that overseas outsourcing is unlikely to happen en masse. While I don't think the quality of foreign developers is necessarily lower than domestic developers (look at all the great Eastern European software companies, like JetBrains), timezone issues and language barriers prove that there's a limit to just how remote workers can be. [*]

However, as more and more companies adopt regional cost-of-living adjustments for salaries, domestic "outsourcing" (i.e. preferential hiring of employees in lower CoL areas) is likely to increase. Assuming developers in Ohio are just as skilled as Bay Area developers and a two hour timezone difference is easily surmountable, why would Silicon Valley companies not preferentially hire Ohioans if they can pay them 2/3rds as much as Bay Area employees? A $200k salary in lower CoL parts of the country goes much further than a $300k salary in the Bay.

[*] That said, even in high CoL parts of Western Europe, tech salaries are far lower than salaries in high CoL parts of the US (e.g. developers in London make on average ~70% of NYC salaries [0,1]). For certain tech companies on the East Coast, a 6 hour timezone difference might be acceptable for such a dramatic reduction in labor costs. Imagine how much lower salaries are in lower CoL parts of Western Europe.

[0] https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/London/ (median compensation: $133k)

[1] https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/New-York-C... (median compensation: $188k)

Re: Tech Industry Warns That More Remote-Work Jobs Are Headed Out of U.S.

#63

Post by pjmlp »

joshstrange wrote: post #22
zcw100 wrote: post #7

A better headline would have been, “Tech industry uses scare tactics to try and force people back into the office”. Been there, done that. If it could have been outsourced it would have already been outsourced. Do you really think they were sitting around saying,”I know they cost more but I’m too busy playing golf to bother” and they’re only getting around to it now?

Agreed, wake me up when cheap outsourced developers actually works out. I've yet to see it. I have nothing against foreign developers but most of the outsourcing shops I've had the displeasure of working with are 0.2-0.5X developers at "only" 0.6+X of the cost. I know there are developers in other countries that can run circles around me but they aren't working for pennies. Also this mindset completely disregards thi…

Consulting does work a lot with outsourcing, it doesn't matter if it is terrible, most companies aren't in the software sector.

It only needs to be good enough to keep the lights on, and the occasional escalation to sort out any big issue is seen as business as usual.

Re: Tech Industry Warns That More Remote-Work Jobs Are Headed Out of U.S.

#64

Post by peteradio »

jollybean wrote: post #52
joshstrange wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, wake me up when cheap outsourced developers actually works out. I've yet to see it. I have nothing against foreign developers but most of the outsourcing shops I've had the displeasure of working with are 0.2-0.5X developers at "only" 0.6+X of the cost. I know there are developers in other countries that can run circles around me but they aren't working for pennies. Also this mindset completely disregards thi…

"wake me up when cheap outsourced developers actually works out. " You're missing the point here. They're not going to be hiring from 'body shops' they're just going to be hiring people 'remote' - just like you. Why do you think that you in 'Small Town Ohio' are going to get hired over the guy in France at 80 cents on the dollar, or Poland 60 cents on the dollar, when they have decent language skills. You're going to…

At some point you end up shitting your own bed with this behavior. Development will cease to be lucrative if this plays out, so now you have a deficient technical knowledge base in America and a deficient manufacturing base? What exactly is America's future here? I really don't think you can be deficient in both or there is nothing left but pure balls.

Re: Tech Industry Warns That More Remote-Work Jobs Are Headed Out of U.S.

#65

Post by tablespoon »

taylodl wrote: post #51
tablespoon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can’t say I’m too concerned. Every project I’ve ever worked on that outsourced something ended in failure or a major decline in quality. We used to need 3 accountants in the US, now we have an army of BPO accountants and none of them know what they’re doing and things take longer than ever. Honestly, I don't think corporate decision-makers really care about those metrics. > It’s not even clear it costs less when yo…

It’s not even clear it costs less when you factor in the decline in quality, delays, and extra work needed by everyone else to monitor the outsourced work. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze. How do you read that as six one way, half a dozen the other? Outsourcing often leads to lower quality, delays (which has business opportunity costs) and extra expense to monitor and review the work. Instead of being faster, cheap…

>> It’s not even clear it costs less when you factor in the decline in quality, delays, and extra work needed by everyone else to monitor the outsourced work. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

>> So it's six of one, half a dozen of the other then? That's not a very persuasive argument against outsourcing.

> How do you read that as six one way, half a dozen the other?

If the costs aren't significantly higher than in-sourced work in ways quantifiable in dollars, then I don't think it's going to matter much to business leaders.

In other words, they just don't plain care about the things we care about. If the thing gets done crappily and painfully, it's still done, and that's fine with them.

Also, I don't think businesses are logical or rigorous places. IMHO, it's par for the course to "save" money by shifting costs into more difficult to quantify areas. For instance: cut desktop support, and the costs move into the groups being supported, so long as the complaints aren't loud enough to reach up through many layers of management, you have yourself a "win".

Re: Tech Industry Warns That More Remote-Work Jobs Are Headed Out of U.S.

#66

Post by vsskanth »

usrn wrote: post #59
causi wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the money still goes into the American economy. They buy food, housing, insurance, consumer goods, services. Immigrants are a huge financial boon because we get an adult that Americans didn't have to pay for. Prenatal care, delivery, food, childhood education, all of that gets paid for by somebody else and then we get the product of their expenditure for free. That's like every single immigrant donating one o…

We don't want them buying housing, we have a housing shortage.

"They" are not the cause of the shortage. You will have a housing shortage even without "Them" because of zoning issues and housing supply shortage.

Re: Tech Industry Warns That More Remote-Work Jobs Are Headed Out of U.S.

#67

Post by giraffe_lady »

bin_bash wrote: post #24
zcw100 wrote: post #7

A better headline would have been, “Tech industry uses scare tactics to try and force people back into the office”. Been there, done that. If it could have been outsourced it would have already been outsourced. Do you really think they were sitting around saying,”I know they cost more but I’m too busy playing golf to bother” and they’re only getting around to it now?

The article doesn’t even mention RTO so I don’t see how you came to that conclusion. This article is about scare tactics to get more visas.

Just because they don't say it doesn't mean it's not there.

WSJ and NYT specifically have been running a steady stream of articles about the need, benefits, and inevitability of returning office workers to full time in person work.

You don't need a conspiracy explanation to see the trend in these publications, and they've obviously been working this from multiple angles. There's no reason to dismiss this article as part of that pressure just because it can also accomplish another goal.

Re: Tech Industry Warns That More Remote-Work Jobs Are Headed Out of U.S.

#68

Post by Clubber »

TAMSFT051022 wrote: post #46
thenerdhead wrote: post #23

They’ve been saying this for over two decades now. Nothing has changed. We know what the cost of cheaper labor means in software. We also know that people are generally happier working from home if they are tech workers. The companies that embrace remote first or even hybrid scenarios will be the winner in the long run. Happier employees = better outcomes. If my job could be outsourced, it would’ve been ten years ago…

> If my job could be outsourced, it would’ve been ten years ago when I first joined the workforce as a remote employee The difference this time is that we are heading for a recession. Company leadership doesn't want to take the risk of outsourcing while times are good and profits are doubling each year. But when the stock price is in freefall and they are under pressure to cut costs, then the risk/reward of outsourci…

>The difference this time is that we are heading for a recession.

>I think we're about to see a big wave of outsourcing over the next few years.

Yes, but if companies are gonna outsource, they are gonna outsource whether their employees work at the office or work remote. It's purely a financial decision, not a "if you don't come to the office, we are going to outsource you," decision. Executives might use that ploy/threat to get people into the office, but they will still outsource regardless, if it makes sense for their company, just like they have been doing for the last 20+ years.

Re: Tech Industry Warns That More Remote-Work Jobs Are Headed Out of U.S.

#69

Post by potta_coffee »

kurupt213 wrote: post #11

This is the obvious end result. All those whiners revolting against returning to the office are destroying their own employment opportunities

Frankly, you sound like a bit of a whiner who holds the opposite opinion. I don't understand why most conversations orient to this binary right / wrong argumentation when the issue is almost always more subtle.

Re: Tech Industry Warns That More Remote-Work Jobs Are Headed Out of U.S.

#70

Post by aweb »

To be honest, as a European I think it's a good thing and we're already seeing its consequences: salaries which are way lower than US ones have already started rising, and lots of interesting startups that didn't want to hire us before have changed their minds.

So at least on our side of the ocean it's pretty good! I just hope there's no negative impact for Americans and we can all enjoy this change.

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