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Comment by xwdv | Hacker News Reader

Personally I feel the push for the right to work from home without being treated as a second class citizen is more important and will do more for society than policies such as raising the minimum wage.

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If you can work from home, you are now competing with the entire global labor force for your job. Expect your salary to go down as a result, since you are now much more replaceable.

No, you underestimate issues that come with hiring someone from another country.

I am not going to hire an accountant from Vietnam to do my taxes even if I would be able to pay him $1 instead of $100. Accountant from Vietnam is not going to learn US or some EU country tax code if he has customers in Vietnam. In case something goes wrong, like you would have to go to court to settle things, good luck on getting someone from other side of globe to the court and setting things straight.

Local regulations, local language plays huge role in a lot of jobs that can be done remotely. But they will be done 'local' remotely so you still compete locally not globally.

That's a contrived example; the jobs of most people reading HN can (and will) be outsourced.

Exactly, here I'm - nasty eastern european that's about to take your jobs /s

Time zone difference will get in the way of that.

Most people on HN are extremely intelligent and could adapt easily to any kind of STEM job it’s not an issue, just look at how many experts comment on a diverse range of topics here.

EY (one of the Big Four accounting firms) has an office in Chennai, India where they do US taxes for public corporations. Of course they're part of the bigger company (EY) that has offices in the US as well, but the example you gave already exists.

Your under estimating the political incentives.

New manager comes in. Hires team in India. He designs his metrics in a way to be greatly improved. Higher ups impressed...guy now in charge of department does the same. Org is now mostly outsourced.

5 years later, oh shit this was a horrible idea the company is dying.

However to that manager and his bosses, they just didn’t care. These ppl all saw their stock appreciate and left before it got bad.

Wall Street and public companies are often rewarded for short term gain at cost of long term future. It’s why startups are able to disrupt an established market.

They don’t have to hire someone from Vietnam. They could hire someone from West Virginia for 1/4 the price of a SF developer a day after college. Maybe even less.

You already have been for decades at this point. The high salaries seen in some places is not due exclusively to locality but the quality of the employee.

What I'm seeing is people from low cost locations which traditionally migrated as soon as they could to get western salaries are not getting those western salaries without having to leave. I would say if you were at the highest compensation level you may see a decrease but it will remain that the best command large salaries as now. The difference will probably be that some who were the best and underpaid will have an easier time getting reasonable compensation and some people who were taking advantage of locality factors will now approach a more reasonable salary for their actual contribution.

it's both, but location plays a bit role, just go to the gitlab salary calculator and try to enter london and another east europe city.

even for the same level role and expertise and assumed same productivity the east europe one will get a smaller compensation, thus costing the company less.

And we should resist this. Do other global products cost less if purchased in cheaper locations? The value we bring to a company is the same regardless of where we're working from. We shouldn't accept lower compensation because of irrelevant "cost of living" arguments.

You can try that, but then why should SF/US based employees be paid more?

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and all that.

It's not that SF/US based employees will look to be paid more it's that people in India who have comparable skills will look for compensation closer to what one gets in SF/US. Why would they accept prevailing outsourcing shop wages now that they can work directly for western companies? This change is already occurring in the circle I'm in contact with.

It's both. The market will find a new equilibrium somewhere below SF and above India.

Surely that improves more than it hurts? I'm under the strong impression that most software developers aren't on these FAANG salaries.

Sure, as long as you don't live in SF/US. It's almost certainly going to help me, but I'm not sure I'd like it if I was based in the Valley.

I'm just pointing out some of the potential consequences.

This depends on your experience level and the position. In my experience on the senior end it doesn't mean pay goes down, it means getting the job is much more competitive.

Some positions, such as junior dev, may have reduced pay since there are millions of international lower skilled devs.

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