[EarthBlues]

I do not think that it is obvious that WFH is a superior bargain for software workers in developed countries. An aspect of WFO/WFH debate that seems to have been missed among US commentators is that a remote workforce is easier to extend or supplant with offshore or nearshore staff. Brazilian and Mexican SWE contractors, in particular, have advanced considerably in quality from just a decade ago, and can now easily replace US-based workers at half the cost without compromising quality. I have seen this trend taking form in my own, remote-first work experience, and market research corroborates the trend, with US nearshore job offers increasing steadily quarter over quarter since the pandemic, in contrast to onshore positions which have notoriously been more volatile. Europe is also seeing increased nearshoring, particularly to Turkey and Egypt. Yes, there are many nice things about WFH and I prefer it for my part, but it’s not clear to me that this debate is the obvious slam dunk that one perceives reading comments on HN.

[datadrivenangel]

Actual quality nearshoring engineers are ~2/3rds the cost when you factor in the added complexities of direct employment or pay an agency to do that for you.

Still a good deal, but not quite as obviously a good deal.

[phil21]

It’s not even remotely close to 2/3rds if you at at all competent at nearshore/offshore hiring. 1/3 at best for top 20% talent.

Once you get into rockstar quality it’s more or less parity since they have all the options anyone in the U.S. has. Most companies are not doing interesting enough work to justify hiring such people.

This is from my personal direct experience over at least dozens if not a hundred directly managed employees over the past decade.

Outsourcing isn’t your fathers offshoring any more if done right. Watching most marginal US tech workers be so short sighted by giving up the only competitive advantage they have left has been interesting to watch.

[rob74]

Trust me, this argument has not been missed. I have read several WFO vs WFH threads on HN over the years, and it came up every single time.

[JBlue42]

This is probably even more than case when you get beyond SWE and into general admin stuff/operations that support engineers and the business. My org continues to have rolling layoffs, targeting specifically long-term employees, with tech roles going to India and admin/financial functions to Mexico.

[CalRobert]

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. I’ve been remote from Europe for U.S. companies for seven years and being cheaper than people in the US was part of my appeal. In the last year or so I notice more of them have finally figured out lots of South Americans are just as smart and in the same time zone too, so I’m starting work for a local company soon (at noticeably lower pay than the American ones)

[Retric]

Fast growing as a percentage but still small on an absolute scale.

India became such a hub for outsourcing because of the huge pool of English speakers in a single country. Large scale near sourcing to South America has less of a time zone issue but only 1/3 the population of which fewer people speak English + a large number of countries with their own tax codes etc. It’s easy to lump Brazilian and Mexican developers together but cheaper to only operate in one of those countries at which point the talent pool just isn’t that huge.

Really it’s Middle America and Canada that are the ‘threats’ except unlike India there isn’t the vast talent pool. Silicon Valley alone has roughly the population of Montana + North Dakota + South Dakota but those states have nowhere near the number of software developers and they want first world compensation.

It’s easy to confuse geographic area for talent but those expensive costal cities are huge: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/maps-extremes-us-population...

[otteromkram]

> contractors

> without compromising quality

Pick one.

I recently reviewed some offshore code in Python (pandas) that was something like:

s = pd.Series(...)

for i, d in enumerate(s): if i == 12: value = df.loc[i][5] break

Yes, that's right; instead of checking the dimensions and selecting the value by index, they added an iterator. An entire app full of this.

Know who reviewed the code? That's right, more offshore workers.

Can't really blame 'em though. When you're a contractor, you have no obligation to write anything of quality since you might never see the code again.

So, now we'll spend more time unf*cking the code which is a latent expense the company didn't anticipate.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[meiraleal]

Oh, do you think you are a better programmer than all brazilians? Care to share your github?

[b112]

> contractors

> without compromising quality

Pick one.

--

Nonsense.

I've seen companies with only full time employees that have horrid work cultures, which churn out junk, junk, junk.

It's not about contractors.

And hiring out of country isn't necessarily a 'contractor' thing regardless. You can full-time employee people worldwide, too.