[throwaway638637]

Kind of strange to see no mention of outsourcing in an otherwise detailed analysis

[sisisbdhc]

Our company just let go of all our remote LATAM hires. We paid high end in their LCOL areas.

They were somewhere between ok and not good. Felt like we got about what we paid for - their cost was about 50% of a US dev. They were as productive as a low end US dev, so in some cases ok value but since hiring low performers tends to hurt a team overall they weren’t worth it.

We’re a mid range company (decent cash comp, not much else since startup). I’m sure if you’re paying more you can do better. But that’s how it’s always been hasn’t it?

[DanielHB]

As a Brazilian dev living in Europe, one thing people just don't get about offshoring is that good devs have options, even in poorer countries. Companies offshoring usually offshore crappy projects, crappy projects attract bad talent.

Also really top devs (at least in Brazil) can make more than 50k USD per year (fluctuates widely based on exchange rates) at Brazilian companies, it is cheaper than US but the tail-end of talent can still be expensive.

If you really want to attract good devs in cheaper areas the best way is to just open a branch of your office there, pay top-salary and don't just use it a dump ground for the projects no one at home wants to take. So treat them the same as at home. I had a roommate who worked in one of those companies that take offshoring projects, lets just say it is not the best talent pool and the good devs there leave fast.

[roncesvalles]

>Felt like we got about what we paid for

This is the usual ebb and flow of offshoring in the tech industry that's been going on since the 90s.

There has never been a scalable arbitrage for tech talent by going over to another geo, and there won't be one in the foreseeable future. What US HCoL talent gets paid is unfortunately the fair and natural market rate for that caliber of talent, at least if you need to hire more than like 10 people.

[acdha]

> I’m sure if you’re paying more you can do better. But that’s how it’s always been hasn’t it?

I’ve been hearing about outsourcing destroying jobs since the 90s and that’s how it’s always gone: the suits salivated at the prospect of cutting wages by, say, 90% and had total write-offs because of it, because they missed that even in a poor country people have options and anyone smart enough to be a good developer is also smart enough to recognize that their skills are worth more. Outsourcing has some big costs related to communications so while you could find decent people at 50-70% of local labor rates, coordination overhead makes that a net loss even before you hit things like the security risks.

Part of the problem there is that the business people really want to think that they understand their business so well that they can give perfect instructions, and it takes a certain humility to recognize that more time goes into knowledge transfer and discovering the true needs than might be obvious.

[jbreckmckye]

Always has been, especially since countries opened up their work visas.

There are great engineers around the world but why would they accept ten beans an hour if they can take a plane to a different country and earn fifty?

The talent from LATAM are not just sitting in the rainforest waiting for your phonecall.

[polishdude20]

Y'all hiring in NA? I'm a Senior dev looking for a role!

[astone26]

Interesting… 50% of US dev cost is like what if you don’t mind saying? 100k? I found the biggest issue with these engagements is the trust with remote developers.

[spike021]

My workplace is mostly hiring LATAM and parts of Europe at this point. Occasionally NA but mostly for higher level engineering positions to backfill roles for people who left.

[Tade0]

Hailing from a popular outsourcing destination I can attest to the fact that layoffs happened here as well, but now the same people are being rehired for 10-15% less. No growth whatsoever though.

[2-3-7-43-1807]

everything provided by offshoring to india is just an expensive tech debt full of spaghetti code. it simply doesn't work and causes harm to the customers. but because cheap it keeps getting sold. working with indians is a nightmare bar none. and i'm saying this as someone who has been to india and is also personally intrigued by its culture. but it's conway's law all the way - visit places like mumbai or delhi and this is what you'll get ... chaos that kind of works.

[beAbU]

I think this is a bit unfair and biased to make such broad statements as you are doing here. From my experience, the outsourcing company rarely takes the time to properly onboard outsourced workers, they are not treated as part of the team, and the really shitty work that no-one else wants to do is the work that gets outsourced.

I reckon there's a lot of "garbage in garbage out" going on, and if an org took the time and effort to actually treat Indian (or any outsourced team) devs like their own, things will be much better. But when you do that the overhead shoots up, and that cost/benefit analysis you did during the proposal to offshore flies out the window.

[yolovoe]

I don't mean to spread FUD, but as an interviewer at a FAANG in the US, I have mostly been interviewing candidates in LATAM (Brazil and Mexico). Same for some of my other coworkers.

It's happening, and happening fast.

[jprokay13]

Many of the founders I know (who started companies in the past 3 years) are primarily hiring in LATAM too.

[nitwit005]

It's been happening for half a century or so.

The boring reality is that the price of labor roughly reflects the productivity companies typically get. Because if there is ever some clear win in some location, people start hiring there, and things start to balance out again.

[aprilthird2021]

Because it doesn't really play a big factor. India has been around forever with an educated, cheap workforce that knows English really well.

Outsourcing is a cost savings measure. It's a symptom, not the cause of the issue

[the_real_cher]

Amen no one wants to talk about it for some reason.