Hacker News Reader

Comment by lefstathiou | Hacker News Reader

Early on (during Covid) I made the decision that remote work was not for our company (SAAS for financial services) and two years in have zero regrets about it. We are clear about our expectations so there are no surprises to employees and new hires (or we filter out people that want it). Most of our clients in financial services have reached the same conclusion.

One of my clients at a large bulge bracket said “if these people insist on not being in the office we may just outsource the job for a tenth of the comp”. I think more companies will take that view personally.

Our attrition is sub 5% over trailing twelve months. I get what works for us isn’t what will work for everyone else.

View on HN

I always see this attitude as a management failure. For a couple of reasons:

1. as a manager, I need to be able to manage people when I can't see them. I need to look at what they're outputting, what results they get, not just whether they're moistening a chair for enough hours in the day.

2. people aren't fungible. Or rather, if they are, then I've recruited the wrong people. If I could outsource the job for a tenth of the salary and get the same results, then I absolutely should do that immediately. If I'm paying 90% of this person's salary just so they can moisten a chair in the office, then I'm not doing my job right.

Most of the tech world is 2 though. Our entire category lives because management is too dumb or power hungry to realise that.

Sure, you probably shouldn't outsource to the cheapest places who barely speak English (eg. India, South East Asia, Russia, Eastern Europe), you'll have tons of communication problems.

If you outsource from the States to the UK or Western Europe (and test the language knowledge in advance) you'll save tons of money and get engineers who can communicate with you.

If the language is not a problem (eg. your staff speaks the language of the subcontractor) I've seen amazing deals work out without a hitch; eg. Russian founders hiring engineers for hundreds per month in Russia, Indian founders hiring cheap resources in India.

Outsourcing didn't work out 20 years ago because we didn't have tools to work remotely effectively (zoom scalable video codec and better broadband have been a game changer) and because people went to the cheapest countries.

There is a middle ground of productive engineers living far away, happy to earn less and who don't want to live among the homeless in an expensive SF flat.

Currently working with an African engineer and a few Eastern Europeans. They present some management challenges due to cultural differences, but otherwise they're awesome.

And because other people are realising that, their salary rates are increasing way over inflation. The Eastern Europeans are earning nearly western salaries. The African guy is doing very well (and better every year).

I genuinely believe remote work will change the world. For the better.

I at least respect that you are being upfront about it. I do think that you'll have a hard time sourcing the high-caliber software engineer you might want to get though.

Sure you'll get junior/mid-grade ones (which honestly might be enough for you) but I don't think you are going to like what happens to your candidates in the coming years. Remote work is just such a perk that it is literally one of the make or break points for many software engineers. People will inevitably migrate to companies with the better perks and it is hard to beat coding with your own kitchen and bathroom 10 steps away.

You also kind of gave yourself away with the "if these people insist on not being in the office we may just outsource the job for a tenth of the comp" in the sense that your industry views developers as a cost center and not the reason the company is generating value. If you've ever outsourced you know the challenges of time zone, language barrier and quality are a hard one to beat. You might as well hired a half-way decent developer in the beginning, but hey at least you saved a buck so you got your quarterly bonus right?

> if these people insist on not being in the office we may just outsource the job for a tenth of the comp

Hah, they can go ahead and do that. In fact I encourage it because it makes me more money in the end. When the software falls apart due to shoddy practices, they'll learn a very hard lesson when coming back to reality and end up paying people like me double (at best) what they would've originally paid to fix the mess. My last company was in the finance space and this is precisely what happened. They ended up pouring millions of dollars into fixing the disaster from outsourcing. If you ask around, you'll find this is a very common story.

Having lived/worked thru the off shore craze, I've never heard a good outcome from it for a large company...

I know several startups/small companies in the 0-50 range that have had awesome outcomes - but nothing larger then that...Between time zones and cultural differences, it just doesn't seem to work for large groups.

Why would you assume people in a remote country will write worse software than you?

There is plenty of foreign talent.

Sure, companies are not great at picking outsourcing firms, I think corruption and/or picking your mate's consultancy firms plays a role in that.

The reason is the comp. You rarely get the similar results by off shoring AND cutting comp significantly.

It often turns out that people who are empowered to write good software as a team are also empowered to research their market value.

Or vice versa

People who don't challenge if they're getting paid similarly as the previous workers also aren't asking if they're being provided with the correct technical detail or even building the "right" thing. (This can be true of hiring too little experience, hiring people and burning them out)

>One of my clients at a large bulge bracket said “if these people insist on not being in the office we may just outsource the job for a tenth of the comp”. I think more companies will take that view personally.

That's obviously an empty threat. If they could save 90% by outsourcing, they'd already have done it. The idea that the tech market rate is as high as it is because of good-hearted managers is absolutely laughable.

And a warning that they will drop you for similiar but cheaper.

They definitely tried it. All bulge bracket banks have significant portions of their staff outsourced, it never worked that well for highly compensated IT staff though.

So no one is leaving and you are not hiring any technical positions. Growth seems flat.

The question is if you ditched the costly New York city office and support staff would you be in a better position.

That may not matter to you because your company is part of your identity. Living in New York and going into the office is a million times better than doing it from home for most. I'm not sure life is the same elsewhere.

Is this for your sales team in the US or your engineers in Ukraine (based on your open positions)? Do you manage engineering remotely but make them come into an office together?

All roles and offices outside of UA require in-office.

We are making exception for UA team given the circumstances. Our CTO is in NYC but we have a local leadership team.

Do you expect 100% presence or are 2-3 days per week from home ok for you? I'd also never go fully remote but have found a hybrid model to be really productive.

You sound like a micromanager who can't tolerate losing control.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com