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AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

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Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#121

Post by TeMPOraL »

thesmtsolver wrote: post #97
echelon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the biggest unspoken story in tech. The era of American developer exceptionalism is over. Talent abroad has access to the same tools, education, and increasingly, network. American engineers will be replaced wholesale with overseas engineers that cost a fraction of American labor. You can hire talented React engineers for $50k that will work harder than their American counterparts. It's not just React. Overse…

Any data backing this? If this were the case, why isn’t most innovation done outside the US? Jobs that have a high 0-1 component will still be in the US but jobs that are more 1-n may be offshored.

> If this were the case, why isn’t most innovation done outside the US?

Are you measuring by where the work is done, or where the people signing their names on it live? Two different things.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#122

Post by _heimdall »

gedy wrote: post #63
alephnerd wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London has a similar CoL as San Francisco yet tech salaries are around 33%-50% what are offered in the Bay. Same with Toronto. On top of that, both the British and Canadian governments give some degree of tax subsidy and regulatory support, though not to the degree that India, Israel, Poland, Czechia, or Romania provide. Why should I pay Jeff from NCSU a US$175K TC in RTP when I can get Jane who chose to return to To…

I hear this, but the fact is a 70% pay cut in the Bay Area would simply not be workable at all. You don't just cut out Starbucks and Amazon junk.

Yeah I'm surprised to hear London has a similar cost of living to San Fransisco. I wouldn't expect someone working in tech in SFO today to be able to stay there at 33-50% of their current salary.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#123

Post by usefulcat »

alephnerd wrote: post #57
evantbyrne wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was making $50/hour fresh out of college back in 2014. And I worked remotely. $45/hour today is not great given the cost of living.

London and Toronto have a similar CoL as the Bay Area and $45/hr is a mid-career tech salaries in both Greater London and GTA. Edit: can't reply but every single white collar job provides an employer healthcare plan that is equally as competitive as the public healthcare plans in Canada and the UK. And especially if you were being paid $50/hr as a new grad in 2014. Edit 2: > And I was in Michigan. All the more reason…

> every single white collar job provides an employer healthcare plan that

The key word there is employer. Contractors often don't get health insurance, and contract jobs are not uncommon in the US.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#124

Post by nradov »

dingnuts wrote: post #83
dehrmann wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News doesn't like to hear it, but remote work is a big part of this. All that effort convincing management you're just as effective working remotely was also a collective sales pitch to outsource your role.

sure but people on the other side of the world are harder to communicate with for practical reasons like time zones and also for cultural reasons that matter big time in many markets

For certain types of projects it's possible to accelerate delivery by using a "follow the sun" model where at the end of the workday each team hands off tasks to another team farther west. This will obviously decrease productivity per team member due to additional communication overhead and increase the risk of errors, but the trade-offs can be acceptable if the project has to hit a fixed external deadline. Doing this successfully requires a high level of project management discipline that most organizations lack.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#126

Post by CalRobert »

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #104
dehrmann wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News doesn't like to hear it, but remote work is a big part of this. All that effort convincing management you're just as effective working remotely was also a collective sales pitch to outsource your role.

Yeah. One of the most ridiculous things in my entire life of 40 years was seeing 90% of my fellow SW industry workers using the 2 or so years during/after COVID where we had more power than we’ve ever had to advocate hard for making ourselves much more easy to replace by insisting on remote work, and insisting on reducing our productivity (even if not actually, at least in the eyes of the employers) so we couldn’t ju…

There’s quite a lot of arrogance about foreigners just not being good enough. Turns out smart people are everywhere.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#127

Post by lazide »

chongli wrote: post #113
vishnugupta wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely! $50k is ₹45,00,000 which is at the 95th percentile of tech salary in India across all levels of seniority. So yeah it’s not surprising that jobs are going offshore.

That's really interesting. I did not know that India used commas for numbers like that, 3 digits and then 2 digits, and then apparently 2 digits again? 3,00,00,000 instead of 30,000,000

It’s the lakh and crore system [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numbering_system].

Older than western civilization probably, but does take some getting used too.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#128

Post by hirako2000 »

munificent wrote: post #108
hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. One of the most ridiculous things in my entire life of 40 years was seeing 90% of my fellow SW industry workers using the 2 or so years during/after COVID where we had more power than we’ve ever had to advocate hard for making ourselves much more easy to replace by insisting on remote work, and insisting on reducing our productivity (even if not actually, at least in the eyes of the employers) so we couldn’t ju…

Remote work benefits workers too, though: 1. It enables them to live in lower cost of living cities. This makes them more competitive relative to outsourcing because a lower wage in a cheaper city goes farther. 2. It opens up the job pool. If you work remote, you can work at any company that takes remote workers regardless of where you live. 3. It reduces the cost of switching jobs. Many people are stuck in jobs they…

Claims 1 would be difficult to back with evidence.

Some may accept a significantly lower pay (to go such a long way), but many wouldn't.

Overall my observation is that costs of living doesn't proportionally follow compensation. The far stretched example is how offshore staff often live in countries with costs of living at about a fifth, earning a third of their counterparts in the U.S or other top paying countries

Of course for skilled jobs perfectly doable remote such as software engineers.

I may be biased by the fact it also makes sense, a worker understands the value provided to the business is more or less equal, and since we live in a market society, why wouldn't it be expected to earn the same. In effect we don't earn the same no matter the location, but it is somewhere between that and aligned to location comp.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#129

Post by darth_avocado »

terminalshort wrote: post #77
darth_avocado wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bah, all of that is still employing people. Companies have completed almost $1T of stock buybacks this year. Since 2018, with the exception of 2020, that number has been between $800B and $1T every single year. And that number has been more than $500B since the 2008 recession. AI spend is bad but it’s not even close to how much stock buybacks have ruined the employee wages and employment prospects.

You think the companies are just going to give you the money if they don't do buybacks?

No but the point I was making was that AI investments at least generate jobs and allow money to flow to people, stock buybacks don’t even do that and are much bigger in magnitude.

Re: AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is

#130

Post by aloisdg »

chongli wrote: post #113
vishnugupta wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely! $50k is ₹45,00,000 which is at the 95th percentile of tech salary in India across all levels of seniority. So yeah it’s not surprising that jobs are going offshore.

That's really interesting. I did not know that India used commas for numbers like that, 3 digits and then 2 digits, and then apparently 2 digits again? 3,00,00,000 instead of 30,000,000

Look for Lakh, crore and the whole indian numbering system. It is interesting. Source: I use to live in India.
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