
Remote Developers Are the Real Solution to America's Tech Skill Shortage - StylifyYourBlog
http://blog.salsitasoft.com/remote-developers-not-immigration-policy-are-the-real-solution-to-americas-tech-skill-shortage/
======
jpgvm
I worked remotely for 18 months for a startup in SF.

Eventually become probably the most prolific developer in the company despite
not being on site.

Has it's downsides though, you are generally overlooked for lead
developer/mgmt positions because you are not on site.

I think this is a mistake, I eventually left because of said mgmt choices and
I think this sent a wakeup call to them.

~~~
derefr
> you are generally overlooked for lead developer/mgmt positions because you
> are not on site.

This probably wouldn't be as bad if there _was_ no "on site." If a startup is
willing to hire remote developers, it can get away with having no office.

~~~
lumpypua
Depends on the startup. I have a real estate startup. We have remote
developers. We _need_ an office.

------
morgante
Remote developers are certainly part of the solution. In my experience,
they're great when all you want is a developer to implement well-specced
features. I have no problem hiring and managing remote developers in such
situations (in fact, half my team is currently remote).

However, I do think there's a fundamental ceiling for remote developers in
becoming leads or "product engineers." Collaboration, especially with non-tech
stakeholders, is still much harder when you're not in the same office. As
such, it's unlikely that we'll see many remote developers in positions which
require extensive product discovery and brainstorming or high-level
architecture.

Unfortunately, such work (ie. senior developer work) is precisely where the
talent shortage is most acute. I have no problem finding junior/midlevel
developers who can implement a function locally or remotely—but finding local
senior developers is nigh impossible.

------
PhoenixWright
I work for a company that employs a lot of foreign workers. They don't do it
because of a "skills shortage," they do it because they don't want to pay
higher salaries. Every American programmer they hire is underpaid and the rest
refuse to exchange their highly skilled labor for working class wages.

~~~
bobosha
If what you say is true, you should report it to the authorities , especially
immigration enforcement. They cannot legally pay lower salaries than
prevailing market wages.

~~~
PhoenixWright
I've thought about it. I've seen these papers they legally have to post for a
period of time basically saying they can't find an American worker for the job
and have applied for a guest worker visa. It doesn't have a number to call
however. If you want to say that's not the case you have to ask for the full
application from reception which I'm not going to do.

They also only post the announcement for a couple of days instead of the weeks
listed. The idea that they can't hire Americans is BS because I've been part
of the interview process with great devs who I never see again because the
company wouldn't pay a fair salary.

------
Brajeshwar
Sometime back, I started sorta list curating companies that encourages and
relies heavily on remote workers.

[http://oinam.github.io/remote-teams/](http://oinam.github.io/remote-teams/)

~~~
mattt416
Nice! This is the idea behind
[https://www.wfh.io/companies](https://www.wfh.io/companies). I hope to
develop this a bit further in the future.

\--Matt @ WFH.io

------
JDDunn9
What tech skill shortage? I understand a few companies like Google have
trouble finding people with advanced math degrees, but most startups are just
basic websites / mobile apps.

~~~
aabajian
This is downplaying how much development time goes into a startup. There are
many more technologies that go into making a startup viable: source-control
(SVN/Git), fault-tolerance (nginx/haproxy/EC2 ELB), scalability (optimized SQL
queries/redis/memchached), searching (solr/elasticsearch), development tools
(Terminal commands/Vim/Emacs/Eclipse/JIRA/Atlassian/etc). These are in
addition to being able to make a frontend and backend.

VERY few developers know about all of the above, even if you remove searching
and scalability. It's these kinds of developers that startups are looking to
hire...and they are rare.

As a side note, successful startup founders often posses the skills above
(think Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc).

~~~
JDDunn9
Unless you are a one-man-shop, you don't need to know everything. You'd
typically have a front-end dev, back-end dev, sys admin, etc.

Successful startup founders don't possess those skills, they acquire them
after they are successful. Twitter was well known for their fail-whale. All
huge sites had several overhauls to scale. Virtually no websites fail because
of technical reasons. Your biggest scalability risk is that you won't have to.

------
LAMike
I'm finding it a little tough to find a frontend gig the past week, but it may
have something to do with the holidays...

I would assume there is a shortage of expert programmers with skills in JS or
C++, but the market for junior-mid level programmers aren't as hot because
it's pretty easy to learn the basics of HTML CSS and JS

~~~
jv22222
What's your website / resume?

~~~
LAMike
Here's my resume:

[https://app.box.com/s/bet4hfb0ocl0denjqkom](https://app.box.com/s/bet4hfb0ocl0denjqkom)

And my GitHub account where I've hosted some Django and Angular
tutorials/projects

------
coding4all
I wonder how people are measuring this "skill shortage"?

------
unclebucknasty
"Solution"? Meh. I guess the notion that this is an actual problem depends on
your perspective.

Because maybe, instead, it's one of the relatively few remaining U.S. labor
markets wherein the labor pool has even a semblance of parity. For now.

------
bryanh
Zapier hires 100% remote and it works beautifully for both sides. We're
looking for javascript and full stack engineers -
[https://zapier.com/jobs/](https://zapier.com/jobs/).

------
ninavizz
There is no "tech skill shortage," there are barriers that need to be broken
to empower non-middle-class, US origin n00bz. Likewise: we need to get past
our unhealthy obsession w/ only hiring others who mirror ourselves,
personally, in startups.

The below article is a superb read, and I highly encourage as a more complete
view on the subject.

[https://t.co/pCv7JgF7mF](https://t.co/pCv7JgF7mF)

~~~
bobosha
and you know better than PG.

~~~
ninavizz
PG's not God, he's just another person. As am I.

------
btian
Probably a combination of immigration reform + remote developers.

I'm a software developer originally from a rogue nation, so living in SF bay
area is really awesome.

------
jase57
Excuse me I may not know all the inner workings and skills of a developer. I
respect the hard work and hours coding that they do. However, I have
discovered that a lot of them are rouge. They have access to SDK’s, data bases
and programs all free of charge.Hidden alone working on different programs for
big companies. I have caught one and did not just wipe my machine. I believe I
deserve an explanation for my computers being breached and hacking all my
imac’s, ipad and iphones. And they work remotely. I have documented proof of
the new technologies the public is not aware of. I am responsible enough not
to act like a nut blabbing like a paranoid freak. Once I expose the big
companies that are being used as well, it will be up to them to find him. It
is not a russian, it is not North Korea. Wake up! The computer was invented
here and the ones that are masters are baby bombers here in America. Steve
jobs and Bill Gates age.There is no protocal for when you catch a programmer
remote managing your phone or computer.Or when you find them accessing audio
and video.. oooppps. I will not stop my resolve until either some convictions
happen or some laws but in place. There are more ethical developers than these
animals. And I respect them very much. BUt to screw with my phone bill, phone
calls, computer , and even managed to damage my credit report. So on a
personal note I am on a mission. Also the ideal of someone discovering what I
have and go through what I have been. I cant just walk away. One part of me
says to leave it alone. But that is not an option now. Its too late. I have
lost my job and now they are still playing games like sick ego trip sore
looser rejects corporate drop outs.May be Guido can get on his computer and
spank all those fools and have the python draw them all in to face the music
like Men and not cowards. Secretive Cowards of the night. LM-Honolulu Hawaii-
jayjacobs808@gmail.com

------
vproman
I don't disagree with the Matthew Gertner article. As the differences between
working with remote co-workers and local co-workers diminish, working remotely
will become the preferred method, regardless of what our immigration policies
are. Americans themselves will benefit, as they move to countries with lower
costs of living. This is already happening with teams which do not require in-
person interactions, but I think we are still a decade or two away from
technology reaching a point where remote work can completely replicate the in-
person experience and thus become the widespread and defacto standard.

------
abalone
Says the CEO of a Prague-based remote contracting firm.*

Personally, having a crap ton of experience working with overseas teams, the
timezone difference is absolute hell. Moreso than the "not physically in the
same room" thing. You can't even get on a phone or be in a chatroom together
for most of the regular working day. That blows.

*(He mentions that he has experience hiring European developers, but it's not obvious from this post alone that he has a direct financial interest in the offshoring model.)

~~~
mgertner
You're right, I should have made it more explicit that I run a software
contracting company (though it's not exactly hidden either). In my defense I
did mention the timezone difference, and I agree that it is perhaps the
biggest issue. But I stand by my thesis: it's far better to work with great
remote developers, despite the drawbacks, than mediocre local developers.

------
unimportant
Few companies like remote for various reasons and this is unlikely to change.

Only the top x% of engineers that have already proven themselves beyond any
doubt and are pioneers in startup technologies are likely to have a steady
access to remote jobs that pay on par with on-site positions in expensive
cities like NY, SF or London.

------
zura
Just one thing to point out - there are lots of remote jobs in web and mobile
app dev space already. But C++, systems, non-web engineering jobs are rare in
REMOTE space.

