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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

If I am hiring outside the US, I'm doing it to save money. I'm willing to accept the downsides -- schedule differences, language barriers, etc, in order to save money. Otherwise I would just hire someone in the US. So if a foreign dev were to tell me I had to pay the US rates, I'd pass.

I think you should negotiate for as much as you can, but it is unrealistic to benchmark yourself against US employees of a US company based strictly on your skillset without any appreciation for other perfectly valid factors.

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As a non-US worker I definitely agree. My big advantage over US-based employees is that I'll work for less. Why would I insist on getting paid exactly the same as a Bay-area employee when I could ask for significantly less and be well ahead of what I could make locally?

Even goes that far that companies fire first in the US and then in other locations (assuming same performance).

I was going to ask exactly that. Don't people in tech in the bay area work on average something like 60 hours a week?

Barely anyone in Europe is working more than 40 (or 42) hours.

This is a common thought but it certainly hasnt been the case at any of the bay area startups or faangs I have worked at or interviewed for. Always 40 hrs.

Are there super heavy hustle places? Probably, but most places realize more time is not linearly more output for creative/knowledge work.

(Similarly, the internet would have you think anywhere offering "unlimited vacation" is a scam but I used and loved it)

Same, and I hold certain cultural biases too. Which is horrible, but also learned experience. Certain countries have stronger low level programmers, some cultures make for poor leadership traits, while others seem to create amazing UI/UX skills. Understanding there are no absolutes, and people are people, I just continue to observe some countries produce interesting niche skills.

Like in my home town, C# is king.

I've said this before: it's not really that there is some inherent thing about being from a country that makes people better or worse. But it certainly correlates, because of education, etc. I (and most remote north America workers) could go live in India and get the same money I do now. Nobody cares about location, but they do care about the labor market based on skills and education, and that's what they are hiring from and that's why people get paid less.

Which country or countries do you see that have great UX folks?

And what are you going to do if that dev moves to the US while working for you (such as on a partner visa)?

Are you going to pay them more or fire them? I don’t work for less as an American Expat, I work for how much I’m worth (which is a lot more than local wages) and I live where I live because the money let’s my wife stay at home, in a nice house in a nice neighborhood instead of us both working our asses off just to have a decent house in a shitty neighborhood.

If you want to pay local wages, go be a local and hire locals.

I had an interview a few days ago and I asked something similar. I asked about the possibility to travel to the US to greet my coworkers and work alongside them.

They said they won't raise my salary and they expect me to stay in my region (Latin America). They also said that if I go to the US or Europe, it would be though to live there with my remote salary.

It felt somewhat insulting tbh. As if they said "we want you as disposable cheap labor, not to become a part of the company" directly upfront.

Exactly. Alienation from the fruits of your labor. It's disgusting we expect people to tolerate it, and act like it's not a totally optional choice by management to exploit labor resources to get a better return on investment for the already wealthy. A modern take on colonization.

On the other hand, the only reason the company hired someone overseas was to save money. They would not have even considered these candidates if they weren't hugely cheaper. Instead, the company would have hired from the local labor market instead.

What the submitter should be asking themselves, is whether they can pull a higher wage working from their current location with any other company. If they can do that, they should. If they can't, and it's likely that they cannot because most companies are operating similarly, then they're getting a fair market rate for their situation. That's the free market.

Well, we agree that "cheaper labor" is desirable because it's more profitable to the company right? So let's apply transitivity to your first paragraph:

"The only reason the company hired someone overseas was to make more money. They would not have even considered these candidates if they weren't hugely more profitable. Instead, the company would have hired from the local labor market instead."

Yeah, what you are describing is practically the definition of exploitation of labor by capital, and alienation of the worker from the value they create.

> On the other hand, the only reason the company hired someone overseas was to save money.

Ding ding ding - we have the winner here. In my company, all new headcount is from cheaper countries. We are no longer hiring in the US.

> On the other hand, the only reason the company hired someone overseas was to save money. They would not have even considered these candidates if they weren't hugely cheaper.

Not the only reason: I have plenty of times hired people who had skills we needed and couldn't find locally. Sometimes brought those people over on H-1B, sometimes just hired them remote. And then if we had a few in the same area, opened an engineering office (though these days I am less likely to do that unless the folks really wanted it).

Yes, of course.

But it would be a great motivator if they actually bothered to relocate you in case you showed remarkable performance and added value to the company.

"We just want someone to work for cheap without prospect of progress" tells me that job will have a low ceiling for someone that wants to progress further their career

It's a choice by management,but it's an obvious choice.

We should not expect everyone to be a horrible person, only motivated by profit, but we also should not expect people to act against their own interests all the time.

Following profit motive doesn't make one a horrible person. People operate rationally within the rules they're constrained by (e.g. capitalism). I just think we are capable of making better rules.

> I don’t work for less as an American Expat, I work for how much I’m worth (which is a lot more than local wages) and I live where I live because the money let’s my wife stay at home, in a nice house in a nice neighborhood instead of us both working our asses off just to have a decent house in a shitty neighborhood.

That is reasonable. But if you want to work on a schedule that is not the same as a US dev, then you are worth somewhat less to me. E.g. South America would be fine, India not so much.

> And what are you going to do if that dev moves to the US while working for you (such as on a partner visa)?

When we have devs come to the US on a visa, they are actually switching jobs to a US role. They don't come here unless we have an opening. Then they are able to compete as any other US candidate. It does happen periodically, but not too often.

> But if you want to work on a schedule that is not the same as a US dev, then you are worth somewhat less to me.

Wow. So, a programmer, sitting in a seat during certain hours of the day is what makes a good programmer?

Not GP, but a programmer working the same hours as the people they need to regularly collaborate with is worth somewhat more than that same exact person working the other side of the clock.

I disagree.

There's nothing like working with someone who is only a couple of hours overlap. Progress happens 24 hours a day, and never stops to sleep except a short 1 day weekend. There's nothing like waking up to find the interface you defined the day before already implemented and a quick chat/meeting to figure out what was done and needs to be done.

Actually many companies will adjust salary if/when they bring you to the USA (usually, not initially to the same level as an equivalent American worker).

I agree with this in general but it depends on the individual. If I were looking to hire someone who was extremely smart/an expert on X I'd be focused more on their value:cost than location.

But for large tech companies that's not how you're hired - a body is needed to fill head count and the overlords determined that this particular position was better filled by a body in a cheaper country. Even if you do turn out to be very valuable to the company, the system is not set up to accomodate that scenario (and realistically, if you leave, the company can just hire another 5 people and hope to get another very valuable person among them).

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