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Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

devonzuegel.com

251–260 of 534 posts

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

#251
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all subjective. I worked on Haskell, without a degree, on interesting problems for an NY salary remotely out of my bedroom in Oxford. I have since moved to the Bay Area and am working for an Eastern European country while earning a Bay Area rate.

>I have since moved to the Bay Area and am working for an Eastern European country while earning a Bay Area rate. If I understood it correctly, you physically live in Bay Area while working remotely for a company located in Eastern Europe, and you are earning Bay Area rates? This seems like the complete inverse of the situation I usually hear of (working for a Bay Area company remotely in a cheaper area and earning B…

You understand correctly! It's a crypto startup but I don't really want to have my account be to obviously mine. It isn't amazing bay area rates, but it's six figures.

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

#252
post #228
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've interviewed at Google twice - passed once, declined continuing the process due to not being super interested in the product. I've declined interviewing at Facebook/Amazon. I haven't talked with Netflix nor Apple. I have not worked for one, but have never gotten any indication that the lack of diploma would be a problem. I gather that a decade of professional experience makes the lack of diploma irrelevant. As be…

My anecdotal data is that I went really far in the process with a FAANG, got a verbal offer, and it was rescinded (never got the official offer). I always suspected it was due to lack of a degree. And no one explicitly ever asked, but they did ask for a rather detailed work/education history, and I never claimed to have one. I really suspect that they SAY they don't care if you have a degree or not, but at the end of…

>My anecdotal data is that I went really far in the process with a FAANG, got a verbal offer, and it was rescinded (never got the official offer). I always suspected it was due to lack of a degree.

If your lack of degree was a dealbreaker, they wouldn't go with the interview process to completion. It makes zero sense to waste time and resources on a candidate that you already determined you aren't going to hire. My team had to interview 50+ people just to fill a couple of positions, and every interview is taking away from precious time that could have been spent working on the product. Wasting our time interviewing someone we won't hire due to a lack of degree makes no sense.

Not only it would be wasting our own time, we would also be wasting the candidate's time, and all of it for exactly zero gain. There is no grand conspiracy where FAANG companies interview candidates with no degrees all the way till the end, and then drop them due to the lack of degree, it is just illogical all around.

Basically, if you got an interview, and especially if you got to the onsite rounds, nothing that is on your resume can disqualify you at this point.

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

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visas and similar restrictions are not a factor for remote work.

Yes, they are. Having an LLC based in Texas, trying to hiring a remote employee in NYC. I have to comply with all local NYC laws and taxes. Luckily it's a developer. If it was a sales person, it could make the whole company liable for income tax in New York state. Even worse when you talk international. An Amazon USA based employee is forbidden from working remotely in India, because of all the legal issues it would…

What does any of that have to do with visas?

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

#254
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very fair salary, especially when you take into account they have real health care, real social safty nets, etc.

My annual max out of pocket cost for healthcare is $5,000. Once I pay the $5k, everything else for free for the rest of the year. How is that worth a $100-200K salary difference?

That's not exactly how health insurance works. The insurer can always say something the doctor did is not covered, or something the doctor says you need is not covered. Or that, while a procedure is covered under the policy, you aren't sick enough for the insurer to consider it medically necessary, even if the doctor thinks it is.

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

#255
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have since moved to the Bay Area and am working for an Eastern European country while earning a Bay Area rate. If I understood it correctly, you physically live in Bay Area while working remotely for a company located in Eastern Europe, and you are earning Bay Area rates? This seems like the complete inverse of the situation I usually hear of (working for a Bay Area company remotely in a cheaper area and earning B…

You understand correctly! It's a crypto startup but I don't really want to have my account be to obviously mine. It isn't amazing bay area rates, but it's six figures.

No need to reveal the exact company name, your clarification was more than enough to address my curiosity in regards to the situation. I really appreciate you giving just enough info, without compromising your own privacy, especially since it sounds like it is a small startup.

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

#256
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…

If it really is a bottomless well everywhere, I must be doing something wrong...I just graduated from a well-regarded university in Germany with a degree in computer science and to be honest, it's not all that easy to get a job.

For example, in London, as someone with no experience, you'll probably have to go with a graduate scheme--mostly at tech companies and banks. But when you apply, you'll be barraged first by cognitive aptitude tests, followed by situational judgement tests, then a LeetCode/HackerRank test. Deutsche Bank additionally requires you to pre-record answers to interview questions that they pose in an e-mail. Perhaps afterwards you'll be invited to an on-site interview where you can repeat the process.

All of this machinery to filter out candidates doesn't scream out that they are that short on candidates.

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

#257

I personally find it strange how gleeful lots of US developers have been about remote work. It means our US salaries are going to be untenable and we'll be paid like the rest of the world. Why pay a Silicon Valley salary when it's remote anyway and 1/4 the price to get someone from elsewhere?

We went through that with outsourcing already. There is something about businesses and their communications - don't listen to what they say they need - that is really what they want and are whining for. Instead look at their actions - they take measures to fufill their actual needs.

We keep on seeing that scaremongering about "you taking advantage of remote work will be bad for your job oooooo!" but that doesn't make any sense. You forgoing its benefits won't make it not happen any more than riding a horse will stop people from using cars. Besides if they can why the hell aren't they already? The capability has long been there and they don't so much outsource to same order of magnitude.

Given immigration to the US for work and it implies the other way around - they need to pay US level salaries to get the high quality employees with any level of remote reliability (recruiting is a rather messy and slapdash endeavor at best for judging and obtaining quality).

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

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started a conversation with a visiting EU PhD and asked about programming languages. In a very good smelling way, he avoided the question. Apparently it is "blue collar" work to do actual programming? This one PhD did zero actual programming, apparently.

> Apparently it is "blue collar" work to do actual programming? Let’s not build up cultural myths from a passing conversation. Of course there are PhDs in Europe who code and code very well. There are also ones who don’t. Was the PhD even in a Computer Science related field? And not to offend you, but many people have better things to do than talk about programing languages. Maybe the visiting PhD had more interestin…

transportation modelling, IIR.. he was from Spain

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

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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.

normal (probably average) senior developer pay in capital (Warsaw) to be more precise.

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

#260

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…

The point isn’t that existing companies in the US or wherever will lose talent, but that the existing companies might retain or even gain talent, and that the workers will reside in locales other than the US. Your points seem to be in favor of the author’s argument that the importance of physically residing in the US will decrease, and that there is an opportunity for other locales/governments to attract remote worke…

> the importance of physically residing in the US will decrease, and that there is an opportunity for other locales/governments to attract remote workers.

COVID really did changed everything, and proved working from home not only works well, but more importantly to CFOs, made it significantly cheaper by literally outsourcing real estate costs to employees.

The past few months have been interesting. I've been contacted by so many recruiters the past year not from my state or even country that it's wild, and all for remote jobs. Compare that to the past few years where the conversation ends abruptly as soon as I mentioned that i would not be relocating.

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