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Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent

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

#431

Post by throw123123123 »

curryst wrote: post #93
ndm000 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The North American equivalent is Latin America. I’m in consulting, and every new project has some set of near shore resources billed much lower than their North American counterparts. In most cases the only discernible difference is proficiency in English.

My experience has been different. Ive found it difficult to find senior people. Junior and mid level people abound, but there are precious few qualified seniors. I think it's the nature of the market. There isn't as much demand to outsource senior roles, so the market just doesn't produce a lot of them.

This is changing and will change. There are more startups and more access to startups with great products that will create the next generation of tech-stars.

This was not true 20 years ago where most of the work was software factories and nickel/diming big-cos

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

#432

Post by gota »

cblconfederate wrote: post #322
speby wrote: post #319

No no no no. Let's go down the list, shall we. Remember, COVID or not, remote work trend accelerating or not, things have not changed as much as they seem: * People STILL want to migrate to the US and it will remain one of the top choices. People move her for economic/job opportunities, sure, but that's not all. * Outsourcing (or hiring remote teams in remote offices), as well as setting up remote and international o…

I think the realization people had through the pandemic is that a very large part of the western world is equally livable. Apart from economic opportunity, what else is there on US soil that makes it comparably preferable? And i think you re forgetting that the US has been outsourcing its manufacturing to china for decades, and china is , what 15 hours difference? Most of work is asynchronous I think the US has nothi…

Reading this post it occurred to me that if huge levels of remote work become the norm, there may be consequences for what 'rights' remote workers may obtain at the 'host' richer countries. I mean, somewhat like large companies effectively influenced the mechanisms for immigration, right?

The same may happen wrt. access to financial services (e.g. Facebook employees around the world may eventually be indistinguishable from US citizens for the purpose of opening bank accounts or owning property in the US, etc.), for example. Maybe a particularly bad example because taxation is very complicated and this messes with that too directly

Perhaps a better example would relate to access to State-sponsored programs like healthcare. Imagine future in which Amazon, Facebook, Google lobby for allowing a knowledge worker to travel from their country of residence to their country of work to utilize a governmental program that was previously reserved to citizens only. (Add a bit about actual citizens losing that right if they are 'unproductive' and you got yourself a setting for a sci-fi story)

It's late and maybe I'm not making much sense, I don't know. I'm aware there are a million possible reasons why this should not come to pass but at least on law & regulation I think that if the incentives of the companies align with 'extending rights of remote workers towards citizenship-like rights', then law and legislation will be changed via lobbying, etc. without much ordinary citizens can do about it

I offer no judgment of value - simply pointing out something that we may see happen over the next years or decade

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

#433

Post by gota »

exdsq wrote: post #394
mistrial9 wrote: post #204

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.

I've spent the last few years in Oxford with a bunch of PhDs and they all programmed. Those who didn't program were interested in programming & I taught a couple at a community organised code bootcamp. I'm now living next to Stanford and the same thing happened again. This isn't just traditional STEM either but economics and history students. Definitely anecdotal but I expect this is more common than those who don't…

> Hell, History degrees at Oxford now have the option of learning how to use databases to store and query information with SQL.

We should for real start teaching basics of query languages in high school. Just enough to demystify the subject for when "tech-averse" folks pragmatically need it for their profession

I've suffered emotionally observing people from non-tech areas toiling with what, to us, are rocks and sticks. Folks that would undoubtedly benefit majorly from learning a tool do not do it because they just have never had any exposure to the principles behind them

We can't fix people's interest in tech being low - we can introduce them to simple helpful concepts early on so they are more accepting of proper tools for complex jobs

Did this sound too exclusivist or tech-centric arrogant? I didn't mean to. I'm really interested in why some things like version control aren't used across all industries and I suspect it has to do with fear of command lines and inspection tools

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

#434

Post by robotastronaut »

evancox100 wrote: post #175
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #161

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…

Meanwhile, I’m hoping that global competition increases tech pay for non-US companies and I can land a remote gig that has some actual benefits like paternal leave.

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

#435

Post by 5revive »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #401
5revive wrote: post #389

Canadian Company: Our upper bound is 90k American, you get no equity, you have to work Eastern Time Zone US Company: Our mid bound is 200k American, you get equity, you have to be available +/- 4 hours from the time zone of your core team for 3 days a week. Its not even close. And if we are talking about raising money - just lol. Canadian VCs treat their investment like they are buying into a 200 year old insurance c…

100% true. If this WFH Remote trend continues the software industry in Canada is going to get a rude awakening. I know many people walking away from jobs here to go work remote for US companies for a lot more pay. Only way to do really well in Canada is to work for a FAANG with HQ here, as they tend to bring a bit of their comp structure with them. Or consult. But even at the FAANG I work for there's been people leav…

Yea pretty much, Canadian VC is just an employment scheme for failkids + some guy who cashed out 20 years ago on yahoo or whatever to coast around.

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

#436

Post by siruncledrew »

simonh wrote: post #203
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #161

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…

facebook is hiring 10,000 developers in the EU to build the Metaverse. https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-plans-hire-10000... My daughter is looking to go into software engineering and I was explaining to her that most of the high paying jobs are in the US and there's a big brain drain out of Europe (we're Brits). Not to dissuade her, but that she might consider that as an option on graduation. I was specula…

Tons of places use devs in Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Bulgaria, and Serbia for example. Most of the US companies that outsource to Europe mostly just choose to outsource to the cheapest places with good talent.

Office wise though, that would make sense to open up in UK, Spain, Germany, etc.

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

#438

Post by Noos »

randcraw wrote: post #287
ctvo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you overestimate the reputation of the US and underestimate how much it has rapidly declined the last decades. How has it rapidly declined? Please list the ways. I don't necessarily disagree, but I am curious.

These are the biggest universities in America today. None of them existed 50 years ago. They are the future of college education in America. #1 Western Governors University (WGU) North Carolina 121,437 #2 Southern New Hampshire University New Hampshire 104,068 #3 Grand Canyon University Arizona 90,253 #4 Liberty University Virginia 79,152 #5 Ivy Tech Community College - Central Indiana Indiana 72,006

Uh, this makes zero sense. This is just places that are inexpensive to get degrees from because many places now require college degrees for jobs that don't need them. They are not "the future of college education" in any real leadership sense, no more than Coursera is "the future of education."

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

#439

Post by foxyv »

danvonk wrote: post #256
foxyv wrote: 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 c…

Yeah, hiring processes for Software Developers is just the pits. Due to accounting rules, most established companies don't want to hire full time positions anymore because it reflects as a recurring expense which counts against profit making management look bad. Contractors can be applied against capital expenses making the figures look a lot better. "Sure we spent $5 million extra on the project because contractors are expensive, but we made $3 million more in profits! What do you mean who will maintain it?"

The result is that we aren't maintaining core groups of subject matter experts anymore. Instead the idea is that teams are interchangeable and software should be well documented and replaceable. Developers are expected to be able to pick up immediately and need to have the skills ahead of time. So there is no mentoring, skills development, core subject matter experts, or entry level positions for college graduates in most companies.

This means that things will suck for anyone with less that two years experience. Also it means that employees will have zero loyalty and company IT culture will rot like an old tomato in the sun. However, once you get that initial experience you will be getting offers to apply constantly from your company's competitors looking for someone.

If you want to find a company to look for, the big banks and such will be a hard pull for entry level work. Working as a contractor or at a smaller company with poor capitalization may be easier to get into. Unfortunately degrees don't mean much anymore unless your senior project was something relevant to industry like Kubernetes, AWS, Kafka, etc...

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

#440

Post by devwastaken »

"illigal online workers" is going to become a term. Why hire a junior in the U.S. for 80K when you can hire a Junior in India for 15K? There isn't some magic difference. Programming is a universal language, the only difference in who can program and who can't is funding of education. We are doing very, very poorly on education funding in the U.S., with only the top uni's with impossible tuiton costs providing anything of value.
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