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Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

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Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#101

Post by lazide »

xienze wrote: post #85
addicted wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was unsurprising when American employees decided to use the significant power they gained over the pandemic to insist on WFH. Whether working collaboratively in an office was beneficial or not, employers certainly believed it to be so. They believed it so much that employers, pre pandemic, were willing to hire employees a single time zone away from SF, and then pay them a significant one time amount along with a…

> And now since WFH has become the norm in the US, employers are realizing there’s no need to pay to keep employees in the U.S. and outsourcing to significantly cheaper locations instead. “Whoa we can do this cheaper in another country???” is not a new phenomenon. Companies have been trying to do this for literally decades at this point. The reason so many jobs still exist in the US is because it doesn’t end up worki…

It goes in cycles, often depending on the business focus at the time.

Right now (and back then), primary focus was on cost. Got to juice those margins somehow, and it isn’t going to happen by opening new markets (probably!).

When outsourcing is less envogue, it’s usually because there is some big growth opportunity and they are trying to get things moving as fast as possible. That tends to require higher end (but more expensive!) staff working in closer communication with management/execs.

It’s the difference between trying to improve margins on an existing product, and trying to grow the top end of a new product.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#102

Post by lazide »

roncesvalles wrote: post #92

You'd think to sustain these ridiculous PE ratios, tech companies would be investing in product development more than ever before. Now is not a time to do less work.

It’s about competition. If everyone else is outsourcing, the bar is a lot lower.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#103

Post by jjeaff »

tqi wrote: post #60

FRED wants the implication to be AI related, but it seems pretty clear that all/most of this decline is related to their interest rate policies creating a raft of bullshit companies funded by too many dollars chasing ever more far-fetched returns...

Returns are no longer the actual goal. The actual goal is the perception of far reaching future returns. The perception of those returns is much more valuable than the actual returns. Because the wealthy don't want profits and dividends that get taxed. They want ever increasing stock prices so they can continuously grow their asset base to borrow against so they can never sell said assets this triggering capital gains taxes.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#104

Post by crooked-v »

lazide wrote: post #100
potamic wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't explain why many execs were keen on RTO. If it was reducing costs, you would thing they would've wanted to draw out WFH for as long as possible. But there a clear rush to end WFH as soon as possible and implement unilateral mandates to get everyone back to office.

It’s really hard to see what a team/people on it is actually doing if people are remote. It’s also much harder in general to communicate less formally and form deep relationships. For execs and managers, this can be a big problem. If it isn’t possible to do it the ‘old way’, remote work can and does work (albeit in different ways and with different constraints). But if doing remote work, why not do it somewhere else?

> It’s really hard to see what a team/people on it is actually doing if people are remote.

If you're totally disconnected from the work, sure. But for someone actually paying, it shouldn't be that hard to see whether the list of priorities for this month is actually getting finished or not.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#105

Post by kmac_ »

astone26 wrote: post #95
esaym wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think $40k-$50k

Dev costs are around 40-45 USD per hour for a lower average in Ukraine. Annual salary would be closer to 90K.

That's right. 90k is the correct value for a mid-level (real, productive) developer across Europe. 40-50k is possible, but for entry-level positions.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#106

Post by 0_____0 »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #84
esaym wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think $40k-$50k

Remember that employee cost is usually estimated at twice their salary.

Does that scale neatly with salary? I would expect it not to, with things like benefits and other costs being relatively fixed regardless of salary

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#107

Post by lnsru »

CalRobert wrote: post #69
yolovoe wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point. I used to work at a SF startup before the FAANG about 4-5 years back. All the engineers there have unfortunately been replaced with those in LATAM too. LATAM engineers were making like $80-$90K in USD, which is apparently really good money there, whereas US engineer asked for base pay twice that. So it seems like a win-win deal for the cofounders and LATAM engineers. Just not so great for those o…

Incidentally 80-90k is pretty normal pay in Europe too. High, even, for southern Europe.

Exactly. That’s around salary for senior engineer at big corp according union tables in Germany. If you’re really good or a manager, 110k is in there. More is doable at senior manager/director level or in key position in a company led by owner. US faang salaries sound here like science fiction.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#109

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #68
rajman187 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was clearly valuable from day 1 I’m not sure that’s the case even if in retrospect we can clearly argue this In 1998, Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences, infamously predicted that “the growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of par…

Why does n choose 2 have a law named after it?

Because Bob Metcalfe was a hell of a salesman.

Re: Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

#110

Post by fhd2 »

roncesvalles wrote: post #93
sisisbdhc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our company just let go of all our remote LATAM hires. We paid high end in their LCOL areas. They were somewhere between ok and not good. Felt like we got about what we paid for - their cost was about 50% of a US dev. They were as productive as a low end US dev, so in some cases ok value but since hiring low performers tends to hurt a team overall they weren’t worth it. We’re a mid range company (decent cash comp, no…

>Felt like we got about what we paid for This is the usual ebb and flow of offshoring in the tech industry that's been going on since the 90s. There has never been a scalable arbitrage for tech talent by going over to another geo, and there won't be one in the foreseeable future. What US HCoL talent gets paid is unfortunately the fair and natural market rate for that caliber of talent, at least if you need to hire mo…

It's quite simple market forces, from where I stand.

Companies in high income areas have two options for outsourcing:

1. Just go for the cheapest salary, quantity over quality style.

2. Find a replacement that has a comparable level of skill, experience and knowledge to the local talent they have or would need.

Now for (1), there is almost no floor. You can get devs for five bucks an hour. For some people, it's the only way they can make any money, so they take it.

For (2), people will gravitate towards earning 10-30 % less than a local equivalent developer. Low prices drive up demand, and since there isn't that much supply of strong candidates, that drives up their fees. At the same time, the employer pays a bit of a tax in terms of time zone, proximity and cultural differences, which introduces overhead, so it can't quite reach the local salaries. But it can get pretty close.

A lot of the outsourcing horror stories are (1). A lot of the actual success with outsourcing is, in my experience, (2).

I believe (1) is primarily responsible for these ebbs and flows you mention. The feedback loop for software development (in terms of whether it pays off economically) are _long_. That seems to force history to repeat all the time, because decision makers rarely see the consequences of their actions. The incoming generation of leadership did though. And then the generation after that didn't.

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