Live data from Hacker News

Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

devonzuegel.com

181–190 of 534 posts

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#181

Except: - no country pay like the US. Worked for silicon valley companies remotely, and made twice the money I made in France, while being 3 times cheaper than local competition. - no country have the volume of hi-level coding gig job offers the US has. - few countries even have has many interesting projects. If you want to code in Haskell or Lisp in Europe, good luck. - the USA don't care about your diploma, only wh…

Yeah, I've heard about a classist element in Europe that might make the path I took unlikely. I dropped out of college, toiled in the service industry for 10 years, got sick of it, went to code school, got a tech job and 6 years later earn $130k. Still no degree. Is it true you can't do that there or is that just a stereotype?

Europe is very diverse in customs and practices. In certain European countries credentialism is not really that big of a deal. In some others it's really uptight.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#182
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> outsourcing/offshoring would eliminate hands-on developer jobs in US/UK and other "expensive" countries Remember companies like EDS? During the 80's and 90's all the development and support for the 'big' companies in the USA was done by companies like EDS. They employed hundreds of thousands of people. Then in 2000's they started going to India etc.

And yet there's still no shortage of developer jobs in the US. In any case, did EDS succeed? I had forgotten about them until your mention. Just because they offshored to India, it doesn't mean it worked and their business is flourishing. I think the model has changed, at any rate. Companies like EDS are mostly obsolete. Sure, professional/technical services companies are still around in the form of IBM and their ilk…

>> Companies like EDS are mostly obsolete.

How so?

They were bought and sold a few times and sort of exist as DXC right now. They claim to have 134,000 employees, I get approached by their recruiters a couple times a year.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#183

Except: - no country pay like the US. Worked for silicon valley companies remotely, and made twice the money I made in France, while being 3 times cheaper than local competition. - no country have the volume of hi-level coding gig job offers the US has. - few countries even have has many interesting projects. If you want to code in Haskell or Lisp in Europe, good luck. - the USA don't care about your diploma, only wh…

Isn't that what the article implies? Talent will be more distributed, but working for US companies.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#185
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I would be totally ok with that. Especially if that $100k include a real pension when I retire that I can depend on, no threat of my kids getting shot at school, health insurance that covers me when I get sick without having to go into bankruptcy, bike paths over the entire country, paternity for when I have a kid, subsidized child care for everyone so parents can be more sane, etc etc... You think this is just a…

In US public tech companies it's standard for half or more of the compensation to be made up by equity grants. Are you sure your average salary figures are not just looking at salary? A salary of $177k would be normal for someone making annual total comp of $350k at a FAANG -- you can see this on levels.fyi.

True, I am not sure their either how they factor that in. On the SO survey they say salary so not sure if this combined.

We talk a lot about FANGS here, but way more people work for normal companies.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at that pay level in Europe you are almost certainly not going to social healthcare because in most of them you will not get the same level of service as in private hospital and will lose more time. so u usually end up paying the healthcare and using it only in extreme circumcises. there is Switzerland where that is different.

Also here in Spain, the public healthcare system is just fine. I wouldn't use private. Public is good enough. But it's more about peace of mind. What if I lose that high paying job? I'll suddenly be in trouble for medical fees. Or income for that matter. That kind of security is really great to have. I wouldn't want to live in a country without it. The US has a kind of "every man for himself" attitude. It feels like…

You are correct about the overall state of mind and culture but in practicality poor people in the US also have some security networks. There are all kind of government and charity based social help, including for medication, housing, food and whatnot. You can go to a state college for almost free or very cheap education. It is not that bad as people might think.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as noone else is able/willing to match pay - kinda. In Poland for example normal pay is $5K but for US startups you can get $10K. Only TikTok or Switzerland has offers in this range.

$5K is normal pay in Poland? that's around 9 minimal wages

They mean a developer’s pay. Yes, the disproportion between the IT and other areas is significant.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#188
post #112

The demand for software developers and experts is a bottomless well right now in EVERY country. Hiring everywhere is a challenge. The problem is that software development is genuinely challenging. Training is a huge problem because programs can't keep up with the new technology. In the past 10 years there have been 3 separate revolutions in our technology stack and 2 in our project management. Everything is moving at…

It's not just the $60k developer in Sleepville, USA. Salaries in Bangalore have literally sky-rocketed.

Launching money into space is unlikely to help the situation.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#189
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those middle-man companies charge extraordinary margins. I don't know whether that is warranted. But you could pay $150/hr and get $15hr developer. Something's wrong with that math. I think that's because of lack of competition, basically they charge as much as possible and pay as little as possible, because they can.

Sounds like an opportunity for a tax-middle-man-as-a-service to disrupt that industry. The uber of outsourcing. I honestly don't know if this is a tongue-in-cheek reply or not.

These are called PEOs, or Professional Employment Organizations.

It is closer to 30% overhead, but much of that is based in providing benefits to the employee outside the country of origin. The cost is also relative to the country.

I suggest that it would be a WeWork/Regus situation. Nothing about WeWork was revolutionary - but if someone had enough buzz and funding they might be able to take over and expand the market.

Re: Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

#190
Ehhh... Have been hearing some variation of this for 20 years. Canada and Singapore already have some tech presence (Singapore is huge for banking), so I don't think those are a particularly bold prediction.

I would love for the Caribbean to become a thing but it seems less likely given the issues with governmental stability and severe weather.

Just observing the companies I've worked for, I've also seen it's much easier to get hired for an on-prem job and transition to remote after proving your capabilities than to get hired fully remote from the start (minus the past 18 months). I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the result is many current U.S. residents moving to those destinations, moreso than locals being hired remotely.

Post reply on HN