Man I do get it, cost of labor sucks as a business.
It’s always disheartening to me though that it’s just so easy for people to justify undercutting labor in just a few swift sentences like this, especially because the nuances of culture are very different, for one, and for two, there are downsides to this form of recruitment that never gets acknowledged from issues with time zones to acceptable quality standards and other things.
Maybe I’m just old, but it feels almost heartless to be compared by the numbers that someone should just “hire in Latin American because they have less leverage”.
Just treat your employees well. No you don’t need to hire in traditionally geographical Silicon Valley areas every time or by default, but you don’t have to go all the way to latam either.
I hope people in other areas of the world wise up to this and ask for 1st rate salaries and benefits
I believe for every person out there like the parent poster there are people like you and I who can hold back that flow. It's incumbent upon us to not give our skills or our time to people who treat us like disposable resources. It's also incumbent upon people like us to build companies and hire people who share those values, and to treat them with dignity and respect.
Exactly this, the two stable equilibria are “the company is the employees, we all work together in office” and “the company employs labor to solve our customers problems, and the company does this in the most cost effective way possible”.
I can't believe HN zeitgeist cannot understand this.
Why would I hire a US employee for twice the cost when I can hire someone 95% as good remotely in a low cost area of the world and actually get an employee that sticks around for a decade vs. a year?
It's honestly not even really a decision at this point if you have the management infrastructure in place.
It's not. The fantasy is thinking anyone outside the US not taking down $300k/yr is untalented.
It's not interesting to discuss outliers. Millions are being made playing this talent/wage arbitrage as we speak. The top 1% of engineers is not interesting to discuss, and certainly is not representative of the average FAANG employee (or salary).
Edit: Direct personal experience during my entire working career. Are there bubbles of super-talent completely out of my reach for such a pleb? Absolutely. But those folks are not interesting to the vast majority of companies needing basic but competent IT talent. Many folks here seem to be under the impression they are in that pool. Time will tell.
Unless you’re a front of the field AI researcher or have other extremely specific domain knowledge in high demand areas then this is reality, get accustomed to it.
> Remote work, where people become part of your team and work with everyone else is quite different and avoids the failure cases you have likely seen.
Thank you. I believe this is the point everyone is missing.
And this is new. Giant companies never did this sort of thing really. It was always the low effort outsourcing approaches I was seeing in these markets.
Today I'm now competing with IBM and the ilk in these markets for direct employees. The tides are shifting extremely rapidly and I don't think many in the US even understand what has happened underneath them in the past few years.
Not at all. European lead engineer here with already high salary (USD 112k TC). I would even accept 90k if it is 100% remote and I can travel the world.
> I hope people in other areas of the world wise up to this and ask for 1st rate salaries and benefits
LOL. That's totally out of touch. It is not about them "wising up". There are quite lots of different dynamics here at play. It is a complex and competitive market.
> No you don’t need to hire in traditionally geographical Silicon Valley areas every time or by default, but you don’t have to go all the way to latam either.
I'm sure all the latin american developers are super hyped about this advice not to hire them.
It’s always disheartening to me though that it’s just so easy for people to justify undercutting labor in just a few swift sentences like this, especially because the nuances of culture are very different, for one, and for two, there are downsides to this form of recruitment that never gets acknowledged from issues with time zones to acceptable quality standards and other things.
Maybe I’m just old, but it feels almost heartless to be compared by the numbers that someone should just “hire in Latin American because they have less leverage”.
Just treat your employees well. No you don’t need to hire in traditionally geographical Silicon Valley areas every time or by default, but you don’t have to go all the way to latam either.
I hope people in other areas of the world wise up to this and ask for 1st rate salaries and benefits