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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Enjoy the remote work now. It is a bubble. Any job that can be worked 100% remotely can equally be 100% outsourced to a cheaper labor market. Those who had normal jobs pre-covid, and since are totally remote, ride a wave of higher wages. That wave will crash the day employers realize they can find cheaper talent online. If you work remotely then you have to be competative at an international level. Maybe you really are of the best in the word, but there is only so much room at the top. Beware of starting careers so easily outsourced.

I would also hazard that any job easily done remotely is also ripe for takeover by AI. If your job requires no in-person contact, it might not require a person full stop.

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> outsourced to a cheaper labor market

Have you hired any contractors outside the US lately? They may not be SV level, but hourly rates that translate into 150k-250k yearly are fairly standard through any contracting firm for people with experience. Can the lone, amazing and cheap person be found? Sure, but that's not how companies operate at scale.

Also, I've been told since I was studying CS in the late 90s that going into programming was a poor career choice because everything would be outsourced to India. Here we are almost 25 years later...

As far as AI is concerned, sure some jobs will be displaced. But, IMO the vast majority of AI will be a productivity multiplier. I've yet to be a part of company that doesn't have a list of projects a mile long they would work on if given more programmer time. Customer expectations will also increase and eventually we'll settle at a new, higher baseline where everyone is using AI to get more done.

>> Have you hired any contractors outside the US lately?

Yup. For a great many people in this world, contractors in the US are often the competitor cheap labor market.

'Any job that can be worked 100% remotely can equally be 100% outsourced to a cheaper labor market.'

Manufacturing was offshored long before office work, and it wasn't because factory workers 'worked from home' so employers saw the opportunity.

Office work has been off/near-shored routinely and increasingly since the 1990's. The decision to do this has nothing to do with the recent WFH wave.

Same goes for automation. Nothing to do with remote work. It will happen once tech is 'good enough' to take over. No amount of ass-on'chair maratons in the cubicle farm or the 'let's pretend we are working here' open space office plateaus will change that.

>I would also hazard that any job easily done remotely is also ripe for takeover by AI. If your job requires no in-person contact, it might not require a person full stop.

Thats... honestly a bullshit that makes me think that you havent worked in cross-geo projects.

Why would in-person contact be needed if almost all stakeholders for my project are across US/EU/China/India?

You think remote projects are somehow easier or more trivial?

I'd want to remind you that there are countless complex OSS projects that are pushed ahead by remote teams.

> I'd want to remind you that there are countless complex OSS projects that are pushed ahead by remote teams.

... remote teams comprised of top 1% talent because they love their job so much they do it for free in their spare time.

Its not quite the same when you have a bunch of lazy wage slaves that want to do the bare minimum.

> Any job that can be worked 100% remotely can equally be 100% outsourced to a cheaper labor market.

People have been saying that since time immemorial, way before the current remote work era. Heck, I remember that being said about programming jobs when I was in high school 18+ years ago. I'm still waiting for my job to be replaced by Indians.

being early is not the same as being wrong though.

That's the nice thing about unfalsifiable statements, you're never wrong.

I've been hearing it since 1995. Still didn't happen in a way all these fear mongers describe it.

Outsourcing to Indian companies like HCL was a thing way before covid and remote work. Results were varied. I never felt threatened as a remote employee

Everyone looks to india, but that isnt the only cheaper labor market. If you work a tech job in the bay area, the most threatening labor market isnt india or china, but west virginia and alabama. The most direct threat isn't the overseas person willing to work for 10% of your wage, but your drop-in replacement willing to work for 80% of your wage because they are paying 50% less in rent.

Wouldn't a Bay Area company outsourcing to West Virginia just be remote work?

I think the point is that it's remote with presumably fluent English, cultural similarity, and a time zone difference that is absolutely routine for many, many teams.

I think the issue is you keep saying 'cheap' labor and a 'crash'. It might be better to qualify your statement as SV/FAANG salaries may adjust down, but for the vast majority across the US salaries will likely go up. I would also bet that many in SV will happily take 80% of their salary if they can live anywhere they like.

Do you know anyone from these states? I know a bunch of folks and your characterization is inaccurate -- the talent that you have accessible from non-"premium" US markets is generally also not as good as what you'd find in NYC or the Bay Area. The set of people you're describing are those from these states that are both competent enough to work at a FAANG but also unwilling to move to an existing city that FAANG hires in. What I've found is that population in general is not that big -- people that have the ambition and grind to get into a top software shop in general are also willing to relocate for it.

When living and working in a major regional city, you can really feel the quality difference between locals (grew-up in the city) vs move-ins. The people who move-in have much higher motivation. I have seen this same pattern repeat over and over again in my career in multiple major cities.

In my experience, HCL "consultants" (non-full-time-employees) are consistently the worst for low cost, offshore talent. My old teammate used to say "HCL stands for 'hopefully can learn'."

There is remote, and then there is "away from office building".

I doubt most jobs are truly "be in the Maldives 24/7/365, we damn care".

Most "remote" jobs are just "don't come to office, but do be ~nearby, for reasons".

These reasons are often some sort of legal/tax type things (data security, tax rate calculation etc) They want the employee to be in the same/similar jurisdiction as them, both to avoid any legal liabilities and to avoid extra work.

It's difficult to let your sensitive data flow across borders, for example, and now one wants the headache of multiple tax jurisdictions, etc.

Now, whether you are "actually" physically present in the specific region is a different question, but at least offices like to pretend you are close by.

Also, people DO like to have group sessions, so they like to call up people to get together and has out things every once in a while, they'd prefer people who can visit without visa headaches.

That's why I feel truly remote is not as big of a threat as people feel like, and as some one who'd like to avail remote options, I feel this has been an actual barrier in getting jobs, so I think you needn't worry about people like me taking your jobs :D

Sure, if you believe the talent in those cheaper labour markets is actually equivalent. That's probably not the case, though.

Still, I think there is some truth to stay you say. I've always worked jobs that require me to come in occasionally to meet my users and get hands on experience with equipment they will be working with (like expensive lab equipment). For me the big win is that I can primarily do my programming from home, but my job could never be fully nor could it be outsourced.

At least I can afford a house with heating outside of London, lol.

Nope. People have made that claim for 20+ years and it never happened. It turns out that the kind of people you can hire cheap are so bad that you have to hire really expensive experienced developers to manage them. And it still takes forever to get anything done.

Risk and accountability are why this is wrong. Local jurisdiction will be the limit to this in many instances. Adherence to local law will be politically controlled. "They took our jobs" as South Park once mocked.

I am perfectly fine with that, what are you trying to say with this?

Do you want to compete with people who are just as smart or smarter than you, probably speak multiple languages, and are willing to work for 5-10% of what you get paid?

pretty sure that is what the OP is trying to say.

Some will thrive, many will not.

That's always been the case anyway. Remote work doesn't change that.

If those people are really that smart, they won’t work for 5-10% of US rates for long, but eventually find the highest bidder.

> Do you want to compete with people who are just as smart or smarter than you, probably speak multiple languages, and are willing to work for 5-10% of what you get paid?

Where do people find these amazingly smart programmers for only 20-40k/year?!

I have worked with a lot of people who would smoke me on an aptitude test but there is often a littany of reasons you wouldn't want them anywhere near your development team.

In most cases they hang at average because what we are doing is just CRUD and they have little initiative to dive deep into requirements refinement, product innovation, mentorship and other things requiring business acumen or outreach.

Nevermind that some of them are just grumpy assholes high on pedantry.

Modern paradox : Companies want global markets for products but no global markets for employment. What a tragedy!!

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