Economic pain train's a coming (Boston, Worcester: public schools, community college, wage)

[yesmaybe]

Also, 100% remote jobs pay less than something locally here. Now it might not be a big gap but you would have to take that into account. Kind of makes sense in that you aren't competing with just people here locally but the entire country. Including people in areas that don't have the kind of sky high COL like Boston does.

They are also much more difficult to get as well since most employers willing to do 100% remote would just go to India or China or Eastern Europe and not bother hiring domestically.

[bugelrex]

Originally Posted by yesmaybe

They are also much more difficult to get as well since most employers willing to do 100% remote would just go to India or China or Eastern Europe and not bother hiring domestically.

Incase ppl didn't realize, the cost difference staggering. You can literally hire 8 ppl in india for 1 usa junior software developer.

Companies such as insurance companies, retail etc would prefer to staff their IT departments this way... its pretty sickening how quickly usa companies will throw American workers under the bus for maximum profit

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by bugelrex

Incase ppl didn't realize, the cost difference staggering. You can literally hire 8 ppl in india for 1 usa junior software developer.

Companies such as insurance companies, retail etc would prefer to staff their IT departments this way... its pretty sickening how quickly usa companies will throw American workers under the bus for maximum profit

If someone tries hiring 8 indian software developers to replace 1 american one, I'm guessing they weren't forced to read The Mythical Man Month in college.

[bugelrex]

Originally Posted by jayrandom

If someone tries hiring 8 indian software developers to replace 1 american one, I'm guessing they weren't forced to read The Mythical Man Month in college.

Yes, but in these type of companies, its usually some financial guru(CFO, looking out for next quarter stock price) who makes the final decision.

The Ceo will be amazed that the company was still able to function with 100% remote.. the CFO will make the case for $10 million in savings if they have 10% remote workers (anywhere in the world)... and it all goes downhill from there

[Bridge781]

That is a good point about replacing remote people here with cheap labor elsewhere. I guess that’s why people need to make themselves irreplaceable. Not all jobs can be replaced regardless of where the work is being done.

[mdovell]

Kinda sorta true but consider what happened to quicken loans. Years ago they were going to go to another country possibly Brazil but when they looked at your cost of currency, fuel costs, legalese, shipping etc it was only a 15% difference VS Detroit.

Outsourcing attempts to minimize your most controllable cost which is labor. However it also maximizes the most uncontrollable cost such as currency rates, foreign interest rates, translation. I spend a bit of time in China back in 08 I've got a little bit of a side hobby dealing with original equipment manufacturers. China isn't exactly cheap anymore they have steadily added more Taxation and regulations and why the number of holidays. If you think it's some place to get people for $0.50 an hour working a hundred hours a week and some sweat shop that's long over. You have to remember that when you talk about cheaper labor areas you're not the only company that wants in on this so if another company comes in what do you think is going to happen they're going to ask for more money demand drives up wages.

Not all countries have the same rules just like that all states have it. I know of major retailers that when they entered Massachusetts in the 1990s they're unaware the blue laws and paying overtime on certain days. Likewise in the Philippines is actually regulation called 13th month pay. If you hire somebody is generally considered that you will pay them a 13th month pay at the end of the year. Are you going to go to prison if you don't pay it? Probably not but the likelihood that that person will continue to work for you slim to none.

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by bugelrex

Yes, but in these type of companies, its usually some financial guru(CFO, looking out for next quarter stock price) who makes the final decision.

The Ceo will be amazed that the company was still able to function with 100% remote.. the CFO will make the case for $10 million in savings if they have 10% remote workers (anywhere in the world)... and it all goes downhill from there

I understand the cynicism, but it's very industry dependent. I don't believe those in MA working in biotech (med device, pharma) have too much fear, at least in terms of outsourcing. My healthcare divisions r&d sites remain in some of the world highest COL regions (including the bay area, Boston, Tel Aviv, Singapore, etc.), meanwhile OPs have been outsourced almost entirely to India and Mexico - if they could, everything would be there. Regulatory burden is great job security.

[BosYuppie]

Originally Posted by Shrewsburried

I understand the cynicism, but it's very industry dependent. I don't believe those in MA working in biotech (med device, pharma) have too much fear, at least in terms of outsourcing. My healthcare divisions r&d sites remain in some of the world highest COL regions (including the bay area, Boston, Tel Aviv, Singapore, etc.), meanwhile OPs have been outsourced almost entirely to India and Mexico - if they could, everything would be there. Regulatory burden is great job security.

Ive been in the tech industry for 15 years now, I've worked with several outsourced development teams and to be honest not one of them provided good, timely results. The time zone delay is too big of a problem to overcome (if they mess something up, you have to wait a day to see it then another day to fix and test). You just end up shifting the burden and expense to project managers who by and large don’t know software. Even though onshore local developers are more expensive, the results are 100x better.

[mdovell]

Time zones are part of it but documentation and qa I think is bigger. I don't think they even know what six Sigma is.

That kinda reminds me what ever happened to that Foxconn plant?

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by BosYuppie

Ive been in the tech industry for 15 years now, I've worked with several outsourced development teams and to be honest not one of them provided good, timely results. The time zone delay is too big of a problem to overcome (if they mess something up, you have to wait a day to see it then another day to fix and test). You just end up shifting the burden and expense to project managers who by and large don’t know software. Even though onshore local developers are more expensive, the results are 100x better.

Same observation here. We do have a remote engineering team now, but they do the "easy" stuff. But we found it to be a burden to give major projects to that team. The time delay was one thing, but project quality was poor. We ended up keeping all major dev work in the US and just giving the outsourced team the easy bread-and-butter stuff to free up our plate for more projects.

Given our IP, and some of the regulations we are under in terms of keeping our IP in the US, I don't think we will be outsourcing much more than that.