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Comment by greatpostman | Hacker News Reader

This is going to put fuel on the fire. I run a startup, we hired two devs out of Eastern Europe at 60k each that are absolutely phenomenal. We’d love to hire American but can’t afford it. I know many other companies doing the same (nyc based seed/preseed startups). With ai, high interest rates, and covid accelerating remote hiring, I don’t see this recovering.

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Ding ding ding, this right here is a big part of it. Previously it was very rare for vc funded startups (which are the main source of decent tech jobs apart from big tech) to hire from abroad, but now it’s more the norm rather than the exception (just look at the HN postings, tons of latam)

The remote work movement chickens have come home to roost

The model I'm noticing becoming more popular is a highly skilled US based team lead and exclusively Latam seniors and mids.

The reason to have some US devs is that the Latam hires are technically contractors and they need US engineers to hedge against the risk a change in Argentina tax law forces employees to quit.

Im sure it's very difficult to be a US based junior or mid right now.

I’m seeing the same trend. You get the benefit of the same general working hours. We tend to only have 2-3 in house engineers and an equal amount of contractors. Those contractors are unlikely to ever be more than a senior.

I mean it hits the seniors hard too - you’re talking about a 50% or more reduction in this type of job compared to before

Yes. You need an expert based in the USA to manage the technical solutions. This is the pattern that works

I can confirm, Eastern/Central Europe devs are phenomenal value for money.

My company regularly outsources large projects to Eastern Europe. Almost perfect English, great developers, projects get done on time, and the pay is a fraction of US developers.

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