
Remote work means anyone can take your job - deegles
https://marker.medium.com/remote-workers-just-outsourced-themselves-3f771f9d1529
======
davedx
Seems like this article ignores the gigantic wave of out-sourcing throughout
IT that already happened in previous decades and in many cases returned to
near-shore / onsite work.

What you actually see if you look at remote work job boards is many (if not
most) companies in say, the USA, want remote people from the USA (or at least
the same timezone as the USA). I think this is what will happen in other
countries too.

~~~
vcanales
In my totally unscientific assessment of remote job boards, US companies seem
to be the only ones requesting US-only applicants, and I have no insight as to
why this happens.

In my -South American- country the trend is to look outwards if you're hiring
remotely; European countries seem to fit this description too.

~~~
dudul
European countries are outliers due to EU regulations. Any EU "citizen" can
work anywhere in the EU, so pragmatically speaking, why would you only want to
hire Spanish people instead of opening the door to French, Italian or German
candidates? It comes at literally zero cost to the company.

Some industries are heavily regulated in the US and having non-US based
employees can become a real headache for US companies. A lot of US companies
have background check as part of their hiring process, pretty hard to do for
someone not US-based.

Also, if you target only the continental US you're already talking about
companies that may be spread across 4 major timezones. If you start including
Europe you're now dealing with people that are gonna be more than 6 hours
removed from your HQ's timezone.

~~~
hocuspocus
> European countries are outliers due to EU regulations. Any EU "citizen" can
> work anywhere in the EU, so pragmatically speaking, why would you only want
> to hire Spanish people instead of opening the door to French, Italian or
> German candidates? It comes at literally zero cost to the company.

The employer needs to pay social contributions in the employee's residence
country. And more often than not, the employee cannot just become a freelancer
or incorporate a single-person company and bill only one customer, as this is
considered disguised employment. So no, it's not necessarily trivial for an EU
company to hire a remote worker somewhere else in the EU, unless they have a
local presence already.

~~~
jedberg
It’s the same in the US to hire someone in a different state.

Every state has their own tax scheme. Every new employee in a new state is a
big set up cost and ongoing maintenance.

~~~
betaby
Why so? I though all payroll/tax details are outsourced to the accounting
firms and very straightforward in fact.

~~~
cosmie
The payroll taxes can likely be taken care of easily by your payroll
provider/accountancy firm, but there's potentially local business licensing
requirements[1] you become subject to as well. If you have an office, you
generally do all of that based on the location of the office, and the
employee's home address doesn't come into play. But if the employee is
officially a work from home employee, some states/municipalities treat that as
a presence subject to business licensing or permitting requirements with the
local authorities, as well as potentially triggering sales tax collection
requirements that have to be accounted for within your sales/invoicing
processes.

[1] [https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/04/remote-employee-
complianc...](https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/04/remote-employee-
compliance.html)

------
Communitivity
True, but...

Anyone can already take your job, as long as they are willing to relocate, or
your company opens a new office near them.

It is more important than ever to differentiate yourself. To do that you need
to find something to do that you love, and then find (or more often make) a
niche in that that that you become one of the top ten people in within your
context.

By context I mean you don't need to be the best in the world, you can be the
best at X within the Y industry, or within defense consulting, or in the U.S.
And you don't need to be the best (though see the quote about being the only),
but at least in the top 10.

There are two quotes I am fond of that say similar things much better than I
can:

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be
truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to
do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep
looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you
find it." \- Steve Jobs

"You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want
to be considered the only one who does what you do." \- Jerry Garcia

~~~
booleandilemma
_...and then find (or more often make) a niche in that that that (sic) you
become one of the top ten people in within your context_

Whatever happened to just getting a normal job and putting in an honest day’s
labor?

Now we’re expected to become “one of the top ten”... what exactly? How is that
supposed to work? What about those of us with families for goodness sake. We
can’t all be super Linus Torvalds ninja hackers putting out code 12 hours a
day.

~~~
ipnon
An honest day's labor only existed in the middle of the 20th century. Before
the New Deal you had to work hard on a farm or a factory to make ends meet.
After the Great Stagnation in the 1970s, the economy cannot sustain widespread
growth in prosperity for all classes of American society. The Post-World War
II economic expansion was a 1 time miracle enabled by the picking of several
low hanging fruits.

"These figurative "low-hanging fruit" from the title include the cultivation
of much free, previously unused land; the application and spread of
technological breakthroughs, particularly during the period 1880–1940,
including transport, refrigeration, electricity, mass communications, and
sanitation; and the education of large numbers of smart people who previously
received none."[0]

The party is over. Americans are at the top but they aren't getting any
higher, and everyone else in the world is catching up. That means Americans
have to compete with the rest of global middle class.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Stagnation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Stagnation)

~~~
andrekandre
that may be true, but i think the parent posters point still stands
regardless:

> We can’t all be super Linus Torvalds ninja hackers putting out code 12 hours
> a day.

~~~
ipnon
Yes, Cowen's follow up to "The Great Stagnation" is "Average is Over" that
follows the same line of thought.

------
gregkerzhner
Real time, remote communication through tools like zoom, slack, and lucidchart
(in my humble opinion) has been solved. It might take some getting used to,
but in the right environment a group of properly motivated individuals can
achieve the same productivity as their peers in a conference room.

Asynchronous communication across timezones has not been solved, and I
struggle to see how it would be. A lot of collaboration requires a
conversation and instant feedback from another party. You can't collaborate
like this when there is a delay of 8 hours instead of 8 seconds between
responses.

So "anywhere" is a bit of a stretch. That being said, absolutely this will
happen across the United States. There is nothing that makes developers in San
Francisco more talented than their counterparts living in Tennessee, so if
those can be gotten cheaper, I can see how the overall price would go down.

Presumably though, such an effect would also cause rents and property values
to go down in big cities. I can see how the natural evolution of such an idea
is that wealth will be more evenly spread out throughout the country, instead
of being concentrated in cities.

I still think the Facebooks and Googles will pay a lot more - someone has to
be the "top dog" attracting the top talent. The question is, how much more?

~~~
crazygringo
> _Real time, remote communication through tools like zoom, slack, and
> lucidchart (in my humble opinion) has been solved._

Unfortunately, that's not the case.

Remote meetings can be far more frustrating and inefficient because of
latency, total lack of turn-taking cues, inability to read emotional
expressions of concern or worry on one person or to "read the room", emotional
fatigue from lack of cues, and so on. And that's all assuming best-case
scenario that your equipment and internet are working well. People pay
attention less, speak up less, and so on.

Now, this isn't to say that remote communication isn't useful -- it's
obviously far better than not having it at all. And even when you're in the
office, many teams are distributed anyways across offices.

But remote communication and meetings have in no way been "solved". They still
present elementary problems like when someone asks "who has thoughts?",
there's 10 seconds of excruciating silence followed by four people speaking
simultaneously, then another 20 seconds trying to figure out which one person
will actually speak, where nobody wants to seem like the aggressive bully OR
never get to speak.

It's really hard.

~~~
gregkerzhner
My hunch though is that virtual meetings don't necessarily add new types of
problems to real meetings, they just highlight the problems which already
exist.

If you have a meeting with 12 people, and most of them are not engaged, the
problem isn't necessarily the video call, its more like the majority of those
people shouldn't be in the meeting at all, and would just benefit from a
written summary.

If you have a meeting where 4 people are jumping in to share an opinion on one
topic, that sounds like too many cooks in the kitchen, not a video call
problem.

From my experience with remote meetings, the ones that work the best are those
between two or three people where everyone is informed and the subject of
discussion is concrete. These kinds of meetings are just as productive as the
real thing. The kinds of meetings that tend to not be productive are the ones
that have a dozen people in the call, with a few people talking and the rest
watching the clock until the hour is over. These kinds of meetings are a drag
in the real world as well.

~~~
crazygringo
Yes, 1-1 or 1-1-1 remote meetings are not too bad, especially for 1-1-1 if you
can view both other participants simultaneously and latency is not too bad
(e.g. New York to SF, not New York to Japan.)

But my comments are assuming, say, a 12-person meeting that has to happen. For
reviews/approvals of a project with 10 stakeholders, it simply has to happen.
And I never said anyone wasn't engaged -- participants usually are.

And 4 people having an opinion is the norm, absolutely _not_ too many cooks.
Just think -- a small feature idea is presented for approval in order to start
work, a designer sees a potential problem, the user researcher realizes a use
case was left out, the engineer is worried about feature creep, and marketing
doesn't know if it'll be easy to explain. All of these have to be addressed.

So I'm highlighting that even when everything about the meeting is necessary
and otherwise awesome and productive, the limitations of remote participation
can add substantial difficulties to running it effectively. And that in this
sense remote meetings are in no way "solved" yet.

------
roosterdawn
> What globalization did to manufacturing jobs, remote work will do to many
> service jobs.

This is bait. It's taken as a given rather than a hypothesis to be proven,
which invalidates most of this post for me.

Issues with the analogy:

\- Offshoring existed before remote work was popularized. For the many of
"your jobs" up to be "taken" that shift has already occurred.

\- Outsourcing is not a magic bullet. Timezone gaps, communication style,
expert knowledge, and legal compliance are all issues that previous
outsourcers to call centers have already discovered.

\- Significant gaps remain between "tier-1" and "tier-2" support. Effective
deployment of offshoring requires using the two to complement one another, not
trying to use the latter to replace the former.

No matter what it is that your company is selling, tricky situations will come
up that needed to be escalated to an experienced customer success team,
whether that's the founder or a dedicated team. Being able to recruit globally
doesn't magically make building that team any easier.

~~~
dominotw
> Offshoring existed before remote work was popularized. For the many of "your
> jobs" up to be "taken" that shift has already occurred.

This is different though, because those companies weren't 'remote' so
offshoring is not viable without that prerequiste.

But if company goes 'remote' much more work becomes outsourcing worthy.

~~~
roosterdawn
> But if company goes 'remote' much more work becomes outsourcing worthy.

Again, there's a difference between "outsourcing worthy" and "can reliably
outsourced for enough cost savings for the whole thing to not be ROI
negative". And, that's my point. Companies going remote doesn't magically jump
start geographic labor arbitrage from zero. That geographic labor arbitrage
has been ongoing for a long time.

------
bachmeier
> Now, you can either hire someone from San Francisco and subsidize their
> obscene rent, or you can hire someone from Omaha. You can get the same work
> done, but cheaper. What would you choose?

This depends on the assumption that there's a big supply of workers in Omaha
that are able to step in and do the job. I'm an outsider, but I'd guess that
the people worth $600,000 Facebook salaries are already living there and
working for Facebook. And then there's the question of whether _those jobs_
are the ones that can be done remote as well as in a specific location. You
have to ask why, if there were such big savings on the table, these companies
hadn't already moved in this direction. I don't think it's as clear-cut as
many are making this out to be.

~~~
jasondigitized
Within software at least, there are simply more people that have significant
'clock time' working within well run software companies in San Francisco,
Seattle, Austin, etc.

It's no different than college football players that spend their four years in
well run systems that run pro style offenses. Sure, there may be a kid that
has insane athletic ability that is playing at Calhoun Community College, but
someone like Jerry Juedy ( wide receiver for Alabama ) is the player that the
Denver Broncos will choose if they can get him.

There simply aren't as many well run software companies in Omaha as there are
in Seattle. And one could argue that the best free agents are going to be the
ones coming out of those cities who can command higher market rates because
companies believe there is higher ROI.

~~~
fnbr
Yes, exactly. I've learned much more in the last two years working at a big
tech co than I did at a small software company in the midwest, making me a
much stronger engineer.

------
beager
The implication from this litter of thinkpieces on HN is that proximity to a
tech hub (SV/NY) is your only competitive advantage as a knowledge worker—your
butt is close to their chair. This runs counter to the other prevailing wisdom
about SV/NY, which is that those areas are hubs—and essential to the tech
industry—because the world's top talent is drawn to it.

So which is it?

~~~
joelbluminator
So you think every node.js / rails developer that happens to live in SV and
work in a startup is the next Linus? Of course they're lots of ordinary
developers working and living there. And yes, being born American / European
is a huge advantage over 80% of the rest of humanity.

~~~
exclusiv
Seriously. There are a ton of wannabes up there (entrepreneurial and
technical) just like there are wannabe actors in LA. A lot of incredible
talent missing at those companies because people simply have zero desire to
live there. I can appreciate the Bay Area but it's just not my style (weather,
culture, lack of diversity in industry, etc). I'd bounce to wine country or
the forests up north if I lived up there now.

------
tluyben2
As someone who basically never worked in an office since I began working as a
dev in the early 90s; you have to protect yourself and carve out niches and
knowledge that takes actual time and elbow grease to catch up to. Sure many
people anywhere in the world can do what I do, but with the deep knowledge I
have about some subjects (banking/payments/insurances backends & production
firmware), it is not very likely to get a better deal as I speak the same
language of all parties involved and I did it many times already. So it is not
trial and error. It simply takes actual time to sit down and suffer for
years/decades. You can hire entire teams cheaply with great _looking_ resumes
and fail because some of these things are not hard/difficult per-se but you
have to have done them before to succeed fast.

But yes, if you shoot with hail and focus on the latest and greatest, you
might be easily replaced. I am surprised how cheap (embarrassingly so) I can
find good react/node devs; that tells me it is really bad to specialise in
that...

~~~
joelbluminator
try to find cheap react/node devs in the U.S, good luck with that. The cost of
skills doesn't always translate to how hard it is to acquire it. I mean, some
medical nurses study for 5-10 years and specialise and specialise only to earn
1/2 what a react dev earns in the U.S

~~~
tluyben2
I think we were talking about work-from-home/remote people and for me that is
‘earth’; I can find really good people for next to nothing because everyone
jumped on the bandwagon. And this is not a stab at the technology; it is
saying that it is a not a niche; I have maintained an yoy upward income for
over 25 years by picking things that are valuable always. And, in line with
this article, if I can have excellent react/node (and Go.. and C# and Java...)
people for $1k/mo or less, then that is not for me. It might work well now; I
want things to work out longterm. Because, you know, shit happens and they
might kick everyone but the bottomline out...

~~~
thewarrior
So what kind of skills would you recommend ? What have you picked up over the
years ?

~~~
joncrane
I don't think it's one skill; it's having your antennae up at all times and
sensing what the next big thing might be, as well as actually liking that
thing.

For me it was AWS. About 7 years ago I was sitting in "Architecting on AWS"
and I had an epiphany that this wasn't a game changer, this was a game
redefiner. I was jazzed about it and have been pursuing AWS jobs and expertise
every since. AWS isn't the end-all and be-all, and it's abused more often than
not, but it has provided an extremely lucrative career for me. Also, as much
shit as Amazon gets, AWS is a very, very good product, or suite of products.
It only gets more complicated every year and my idea of it evolves every year
as well.

It's still going strong, but I do have my eye on other technologies and am
making sure I don't become a dinosaur.

~~~
thewarrior
Interesting. What aspects of AWS do you think will grow further ?

What other technologies do you have your eye on ?

~~~
joncrane
#1 Security: no one knows how to secure AWS. But I also really, really hate
how the Cybersecurity organizations operate in every job I've ever had so that
would feel like selling my soul to the devil.

#2 "Big Data"

#3 Containerization (working with it on AWS specifically)

------
danans
The article title is intentionally click-baity.

The extent to which it's true entirely depends on what "your job" is. Routine,
non-creative work that can be performed asynchronously, with limited contact
with others - the tech equivalent of craft piecework - sure, that can usually
be done from anywhere: things like answering (simple) tech support requests,
maintaining a static codebase with no new requirements, or implementing a
feature for which the requirements and technical design have already been
specified by others.

Having myself worked on teams that located such tasks in lower-cost-of-labor
regions, I can attest that most of those cost savings have already been
realized.

But creative work, like proposing the problems to solve in the first place,
facilitating the discussion of how to solve them, and designing the technical
and human solution - especially for problems at the intersection of technology
and culture - those are not easily shifted to remote work. If the
outsourced/remote worker is competent enough to work in that kind of capacity
remotely, they will cost as much the non-remote worker.

------
popotamonga
It also means i can take someone else's job. It balances out.

~~~
ReticentVole
You drive a car, I use a bus.

You eat meat, I eat potatoes.

You fly to Disneyworld, I take the train to the seaside.

You live in a big house, I live in a small apartment.

You pay American income taxes, I don't.

You demand clean air and water, I tolerate pollution.

There are some fundamental factors which make labour in other parts of the
world much cheaper, and people willing to accept a much lower quality of life
and associated lower incomes.

Its no wonder that big tech is so in favour of remote working - its going to
allow the outsourcing of a huge amount of work (white collar) previously
considered untouchable.

~~~
new2628
Funnily, except for the pollution part, most of your items on the right seem
more attractive from a quality-of-life point of view than those on the left.
Flying to Disneyworld sounds like a nightmare I would never (willingly) do,
but a trainride to the seaside is always nice.

~~~
renewiltord
Haha I have to admit I wasn't sure of his point at that stage. Taking a train
to the seaside sounds sort of romantic. Flying to Disneyland sounds sort of
rote. I still get the point but it is amusing.

------
ozim
If you ignore trust and need for stable income then maybe.

Companies don't hire people remote first and especially junior people. Now it
will be even harder for junior people to get a job, any job, companies will
stick to who they have and even fire some.

Employees don't want to work with company on the other side of globe, because
company might just cut them off with no pay and what they are going to do? How
do you sue a company from another continent?

There is also a lot more in terms of laws and regulations, where even hiring
people from another country in EU is not just "hire and forget".

Last note, there are people who want to live in high expense areas, want to
live in big cities because that is a lifestyle they like. I see on HN that
mostly people argue like everyone would like to live in some forgotten small
town only to pay less rent. I am not big fan of big cities but somehow I like
to have a cinema or selection of pubs bigger that one or two.

~~~
blaser-waffle
> Last note, there are people who want to live in high expense areas, want to
> live in big cities because that is a lifestyle they like. I see on HN that
> mostly people argue like everyone would like to live in some forgotten small
> town only to pay less rent. I am not big fan of big cities but somehow I
> like to have a cinema or selection of pubs bigger that one or two.

+1 for this. I've been 100% remote 5+ years now and I regularly contemplate
going rural -- like far, far away rural -- but always hesitate because the
lack of amenities and things to do is fairly limited.

Fear of losing a job and not being able to get another remote gig is also a
concern; being near-ish to a big city gives me some fallback options.

------
toohotatopic
It should be "Anyone _Could_ Take Your Job"

It's the Jevons_paradox [1]. More available workers will lead to more demand
for workers. It's a two edged sword. Unlike unskilled labour, remote workers
can switch employers, too. This turns an employer market into a worker market.
Actually it is even true for unskilled if there is a local surplus of
unskilled work.

The world is essentially in an intelligence war for resources. No player can
pass on brain soldiers. We see a decline in wages because there are still
people not connected to the internet.

I would expect that once that transition period is over, remote work becomes a
liability to a company. Companies will have to create unique and enticing work
environments to bind workers.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox)

------
ryanisnan
This article seems to ignore the fact that working with people in vastly
differing timezones can be a real nuisance. Yes, it can also be a boon for
some positions, like follow-the-sun type SRE or customer support, but for a
lot of positions, having people working massively different schedules is a
real challenge.

It can absolutely work, given the right async workflows, but it can also
absolutely fail. I'm inclined to believe failure is the default mode of
operation.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Almost my entire (small) company is based in NYC, but we have one programmer
in Europe. He just adjusts his schedule to US Eastern Time hours. Might be
harder if he was in Australia, but that still leaves a lot of flexibility.

Heck, as I'm writing this, it's 11:20 am where I live, and I just overheard my
sister get out of bed in the next room. Last night, she was taking an online
MCAT prep course until after I went to bed around midnight. She could easily
work in a different timezone.

~~~
ghaff
In my experience, Eastern Time to Central European Time synchronous
communications works pretty well without anyone having to deviate too much
from normal working hours. Add Pacific Time to the mix and you're starting to
need people willing to take calls at 6am and/or in the evening.

But, yes, some people are willing to adjust their personal time zones. I know
someone who lives in Hawaii and runs a PR agency with mainland US clients. She
just normally gets up very early.

------
Spooky23
1995 wants their article back.

The horse is out of the barn there. I remember working with HP, Microsoft and
IBM people in 1999 whose management chains were in South Dakota, Phoenix, etc.

------
gexla
The bigger issue right now is the total cratering of the world economy. Then
there's also the unknown resets which will come with that. Trends which were
in slow motion and maybe barely noticeable may have gone into overdrive. Now
we don't know where we're at.

To say that you're role is at risk because anyone around the world can take
that role is as much guesswork as anyone else can give. This is just another
prediction in a storm of unknowns.

From the article...

> If you thought globalization was fun for manufacturing, buckle up. Remote
> work is about to globalize a bunch of service jobs as well.

This makes sense from what I knew a few months ago. What doesn't sit right
with me is that we're also possibly looking at a world in which globalization
will be reversing. Supply chains may be rejiggered to operate closer to home.
Will remote work go MORE globalized while everything else possibly reverses?

> Like any big economic change, there’ll be winners and losers, and it’s not
> exactly clear from the outset who will end up benefiting from the change.

So, we don't know what's going to happen, this is just his prediction.

This is a complex subject. Software doesn't operate like textiles. If the
textile company charges twice as much, then the consumer pays more. Facebook
engineers charging X more than engineers from SE Asia doesn't make the service
more expensive. It's still "free" for the customer. There are other things to
optimize on before you get to cost of workers.

Another potential bigger issue for US workers is the possible change of the
center of gravity for software development. US workers need to stay
competitive. This will be challenged not so much by cheaper workers, but by
global competition to US companies. Which should US workers worry about more?
Workers from around the world taking US jobs? Or ByteDance challenging
Facebook?

US workers have already been dealing with outsourcing. The big change would be
US workers applying for foreign jobs. Right now the US has a load of strong
talent these companies could be mopping up.

~~~
ph0rque
> Will remote work go MORE globalized while everything else possibly reverses?

I think this is the right approach. Global bits, local atoms.

------
st-isidore
The article makes broad, sweeping generalizations, but it was enjoyable and
engaging to read, so cheers to the author for that. He's right, too, generally
speaking: lots of work can and will be done remotely from various locations
across the globe. Of course, there will always be natural divides (that's what
makes us human). Someone who can't speak the same language as the rest of the
team just isn't going to get hired, no matter how well they can code.

Government regulations also play a huge role in how "globalized" a job can be.
If you're working at a defense contractor, for example, you sure as heck
aren't going to be replaced by a foreign national. In many cases, the office
culture at those companies won't change hardly at all, due to data governance
restrictions.

------
y-c-o-m-b
I had this same fear a few years back. I don't have any notable personal
projects on GitHub and my skills are pretty standard (Full Stack .NET) these
days. I don't even have a degree. Nothing really stands out in my resume that
screams "hire this person". I figured I would hardly get a response when
applying to remote companies let alone an offer. The competition is surely way
more qualified than I am. Furthermore I was applying on StackOverflow where
talent pools are endless. I applied anyway.

Well, I was wrong. I've had many interviews from that platform and so my last
two jobs have been fully remote companies. The compensation has been even
better than what I get locally (Portland, OR). It seems there is still a
strong desire for experienced professionals and cultural fit; both of which
many candidates don't posses. Despite the immense number of applications these
companies received, they still complained that good talent and good
personalities are hard to come by. What that tells me is even an average Joe
like me doesn't need to worry about "anyone taking my job" because there's
always a demand for it somewhere that's not being fulfilled.

~~~
josho
I appreciate your short term perspective, and agree with you that today remote
work doesn't have these fears. However, the author is thinking about a longer
time horizon.

As an example, with agreements between Canada/US and similar culture it would
be very easy for your company to start hiring remote workers in Canada.
Suddenly due to currency differences their salaries are 30% cheaper, and with
a strong social safety & gov. subsidies likely even cheaper for similar
talent.

Then some time later after your company has had success with some
international workers they branch out farther and hire a few juniors from
South America in the same time zone. Repeat this cycle over the next decade
and now salaries have been eroded even for high paying information workers.

I'm starting to feel globalization is a race to the bottom for everyone but
the owners.

~~~
nsporillo
Globalization is and always was a race to the bottom for everyone but the
owners. In my opinion, the idea has always been outsource work to other
countries to bootstrap their economies into the modern era so whatever work we
didn't outsource could benefit from additional customers.

I think Globalization went a bit too far and left too many American cities in
the dust while catapulting strategic competitors into a powerful position. The
idea that millions of workers who lost their jobs could just immediately
retool and find work higher up the value chain was a disaster. Many argue that
Globalization has been a success for lifting millions out of poverty, but to
me that just says we ruined some peoples livelihood for the benefit of other
countries who seek to simply replace the need for us instead of trade with us.

~~~
josho
We were told that globalization made things more efficient. So, if you always
saw it as a race to the bottom you are smarter than I and many others because
that wasn't what was sold to us.

Maybe the real problem is that in the 60s we were told that our future selves
would be filled with leisure time due to automation. That leisure team turned
out to be a synonym for unemployment. The problem is that the wealth generated
from globalization became centralized instead of benefitting everyone.

------
mandeepj
Not true at all. Working remotely is a skill and lifestyle - not everyone
likes/have it

------
Justsignedup
I have a strong opinion on this, but it starts at a lower level...

A good developer is a developer that makes themselves obsolete.

By making themselves obsolete the developer has made themselves invaluable.

How can both of those things be true?

This is basically because you find that great developers write code and
patterns that make it easy for anyone to jump in an understand. Even if
complicated. I strive to do this as much as possible. The more I do this the
faster development becomes for myself and my team. However the more I do this,
the more my team leads realize that without me, things won't progress in the
right direction. But theoretically they can fire me any time and find a
cheaper worker to do my job.

The point is, I see lots of managers treat engineers as commodities. However
if that is their outlook, then they will always look to outsource because they
see no value in you. Good managers realize that things are smooth and
maintainable because of the people who put effort into doing that, not that
because things are smooth and maintainable everyone is expandable. Every time
I see the latter being the mindset there's always a HUGE slowdown because the
wrong things start being built.

~~~
runawaybottle
I think the thing you are describing might be seen as a scalar quantity by
management. They may just see speed, and not _why_ something is fast.

This is unfortunate because if they are operating with scalar conversions then
you might misleadingly believe they see the why and how, but in reality are
just seeing the what (price or speed or quantity, but not value, impact).

~~~
Justsignedup
well yes, however good management works to check up on that. it is foolish to
assume everything is smooth because it is smooth, you want to know why things
are going well just like you want to know why they are not.

at a high level this is really hard to know. but it is important to know who
your talent is, otherwise you replace the talent. many in upper management
assume engineering is like factory work, which is how you end up with the most
terrible software and no path to fix it :(

------
INTPenis
This is a loaded topic.

On one hand I do work for a large European enterprise with a branch in India.
I know for a fact that it adds a lot of social and cultural overhead to co-
operate with a remote branch who barely speak English.

They're great for specific tasks, like 24/7 ops and monitoring. As long as
there are clear instructions.

On the other hand I'm an idealist at heart who believes that borders should go
away and we should work together as one world.

But it might be a bit too naive to think that utopia is around the corner just
because IT techs are working remotely.

So I'd have to say that OP is wrong. For more than one reason. We're also
contractually obliged to hire citizens for certain private sector clients. And
in some cases we have to go even further and security rate them.

But regardless of my experiences there will always be people who shine and
hopefully get picked up by a remote employer who treats them well. Our branch
might be ~60 people, I've worked with only a handfull of them for 3 years and
still managed to meet one or two who really went above and beyond to show that
they cared about their work.

------
bamboozled
As someone who has worked remotely and worked for remote teams for some time
now, I can say that you need hire a higher caliber people with excellent
communication skills who you can really trust to deliver.

I think remote work will just make sure good people are in higher demand,
which means that the market may even get hotter for better people.

Companies who just complete on price will fail spectacularly.

Bring it on.

------
vsareto
If you get replaced only because of your salary, they're doing you a long-term
favor. They weren't really invested in you.

This article implies the cog theory of developers, and I rarely see that
supported on this site:

>You can get the same work done, but cheaper. What would you choose?

It probably won't be the same work. Other variables, such as throughput, also
factor in.

------
jandrewrogers
A lesson learned in other markets applies here: you can avoid a race to the
bottom by effectively competing in one of the many dimensions other than
price. If you don't want to be a commodity, you have to be able to answer the
question of what is the one thing you do better than almost anyone else, and
sell that. Geographical proximity isn't a great answer in a market where
everyone is going remote. It doesn't even need to be technical in nature for a
developer.

Different companies place inordinate value on different things, so it is
partly a game of matching your exceptional dimensions to companies that place
a lot of value on those dimensions. How many people here are using the
cheapest laptop that will technically do the job? The developers that are at
risk are those that are "average" in every dimension that an employer might
care about.

------
jorblumesea
Anyone who has ever worked with off shore teams or international engineering
offices knows that it's not technical skill, but things like communication,
cultural norms, expectations, requirements, project management. So while it's
true that "anyone can take your job" the reality is that it's harder than you
think.

Companies have already had the ability to outsource talent for decades. It's
proven much less beneficial than anticipated. Everyone has had "that email"
from an overseas office where it makes little to no sense. Or, that code
review that completely misses the feature request. Remote work will not change
that significantly. Companies might be more distributed, if they can make the
organizational structure work. But moving to a "remote focused" organizational
is an incredible amount of work and hard to execute properly.

------
taylodl
There's a negative way of looking at things. Another way of looking at it is
remote work means _I_ can take anyone's job!

------
code4tee
Yes, but with caveats. This is what happened with call centers in the US which
broadly went to places like India with big outsourcing firms.

That back-fired big time when the quality of service went to crap with
companies rushing to bring these services back home.

Similar stories with tech outsourcing. There are things that have been
successfully outsourced some functions to places like India, but there’s also
a reason why high performing companies actually don’t seem to offshore key IP
development efforts. The labor might be cheap but the true cost of bad quality
is sky high.

So this will happen to an extent but cost can’t be the only factor driving
decisions if the goal is long term success.

~~~
non-entity
> That back-fired big time when the quality of service went to crap with
> companies rushing to bring these services back home.

Ofc now many of these have gone to crap again now with full automation.

------
m3kw9
And you can take anyone’s. The scale is bigger but is hard to argue if the
ratio isn’t similar but just at a larger scale. I think the bigger difference
is the option to WFH is not just an after thought, but a real option now.

------
this_na_hipster
Assuming a theoretical point of view as pointed by the article, there are
multiple pieces still missing in my head.

Lets say a traditional software team has these 5 types of people: \- Design /
XD \- Software Engineer \- Software Manager \- Product Manager \- Data analyst
or Data Scientist

If you assume all of these roles can be collaborated on a async basis and from
within different timezones - that makes progress extremely slow right? Someone
emails, someone has a question, someone has a clarification, etc.

Now if we assume same locale, that drastically changes the game since everyone
can communicate at the same time even if remote. Therefore, my point#1 is, a
global distributed teams that are across time zones really don't make sense.

Keeping in line with the article, let's say a company decides to outsource all
these different professions. That would mean, you're even outsourcing
management, people that need to oversee are needed to the same region. How
high does one go? All the way to directors of each respective field or Vice
President? Maybe we go as far as till we reach an owner for a service or
product for that region. This is what happens basically today (pre-covid).
Each region has a focus in a deliverable. India team is working on X, China
team is working on Y, etc. So point#2, outsourcing has to happen not only for
people that are executing work, but for people that are overseeing the
execution as well.

That finally gets me to the last point. If we have these vertical's of people
localized to specific regions, you cannot have specific outsourcing of jobs.
You would need a batch outsourcing of jobs from IC's to managers. However,
each region a company is in, requires locale specific folks to solve specific
problems. Amazon US is very different than Amazon India pay after you receive
package, for example. So my point#3, I don't believe we will see too much of a
shift for jobs to other countries. We might see a shift in jobs from
California to Texas for example.

By now, you might understand where i'm going :-). If you hired enough of a
presence in mid-west, suddenly, you now have a pool of candidates that
competitors, and other companies can also hire from. You as a company, unless
you can spin an entirely new vertical, will back-fill employees from the mid-
west again since the remaining team is located in that region. Thereby
creating a pocket of talent. Enough pockets of talents will create many
companies that want to hire that talent. This is what we effectively have
today in major cities. The only difference is, you have a larger area vs a
smaller city.

------
rootusrootus
This thought isn't new. The company I work for now has been around a while,
and they went through an entire phase of remote work. They have walked it back
lately. We still have plenty of people working from various corners of the
country, but new hires are on site at one of our office locations.

I won't be surprised to see a renewed push for remote work, but the tools are
still pretty mediocre compared to in person collaboration, so I also won't be
surprised to see some pushback as organizational leaders decide getting people
in a room is worth paying extra for.

------
LockAndLol
That's a nice sentiment. Every country is looking for skilled IT workers. The
amount of positions isn't going to magically decrease to create an overflow of
ITers. There'll still be a shortage.

Having personally seen the quality of outsourced code and the effort needed to
clean up the mess in order to make the product stable, companies are going to
be in for a nice surprise if they think that short-changing devs and simply
going remote will work in their favor.

Interesting times are ahead.

------
one2know
More like anyone can rip off employers. When you are dealing internationally,
you are out of the bounds of US law. There is no guarantee that your code
won't simply be stolen. You have no recourse except travel twelve time zones
to a place you have no power in. No one need worry about outsourcing. It's
been proven that the only work going to outsourcing is low risk service labor
like phone support.

~~~
josho
As a counter example IP laws in Canada are aligned with US and is the same
timezone, yet with currency exchange salaries are discounted by 30%.

~~~
pashamur
Canada is only ~10% of the U.S. population. I'm not sure in terms of developer
numbers, but if percentages are comparable, that's a pretty small effect on
the overall market.

~~~
josho
I wouldn't consider increasing the labor pool by 10% a small effect.

Regardless, and once a company has figured out hiring remote for Canada, then
why not add Mexico which through NAFTA/USMCA has sorted out IP type issues.
Then once MX has worked well why stop there and repeat across South America.
So, the reality is likely increasing the labor pool size every year for the
next decade. Those annual small changes compound and lead to dramatic changes
over the long term.

Take a look at what happened to manufacturing jobs in the US over the past few
decades. Remote work has the potential to transform things just as much.

------
GnarfGnarf
_Everyone would have to sit two meters apart, which means two times the square
feet_

No... it's __four times __the square feet.

~~~
klmadfejno
four pi times the square feet?

~~~
downerending
Hmm. Could use hex packing, but still need aisles. And there are probably fire
escape regulations.

------
christiansakai
Timezones, sanctions, taxes, labor laws.

Yeah, there's no way the governments of nations will let their companies
outsource their IT more and more that easily.

------
mlthoughts2018
Let’s flip this around. If [anyone] can take [your] job, then it stands to
reason that remote work means _I_ can take someone else’s job.

But what would this mean for me? First off it would mean doing all the same
work to prepare myself as a candidate. Take Machine Learning for example,
which is my area. I need to prepare my resume based on my current projects. I
need to brush up for nauseating leet-code hazing trivia dumb shit (probably on
a virtual whiteboard now). I need to research companies that have roles I’d be
interested in.

Now I do all that, let’s say I do well in the interview.

Am I going to take less money to take the job? No. In fact, I’ll probably want
more money than I am earning now if I am going to risk switching jobs.

Am I going to accept my salary to be adjusted by geographic region or cost of
living data? No. My compensation is about the value I add to your company. It
has nothing to do with where I live.

If I want to do lifestyle arbitrage on my high salary, that’s purely my
business and is a private matter my employer does not get to know about or
consider.

Given this, how many employers are really likely to want to hire me? I’m going
to demand a NYC salary no matter where I live. They won’t get to replace their
existing NYC-salary-person with a cheaper competitor, because nobody is
cheaper, and a lot of people are more expensive.

In essence, supply went up if you can hire from anywhere, but the price for
that supply did not go down, it’s just permanently higher.

I think if companies are looking to trade employees for a cheaper model, they
are going to be surprised that hiring remote doesn’t facilitate this at all.
The people from rural Kansas who can do the same job are not idiots happy to
take 1/2 the pay because of where they live. It’s stupid to expect they would
be.

~~~
colinmhayes
Maybe the people in Kansas won't be taking a pay cut, but workers who were
previously limited by immigration laws would definitely be happy to. Indians
speak english, Mexico and a handful of other central/south american countries
are in the same time zone as the us. People in those situations would be
incredibly happy to work for half of what you make now. There are definitely
problems with hiring those people, but your argument that supply won't expand
is incredibly naive.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
No, you are just wrong. People from around the world are not dumb! If they are
worth $X they will demand $X. This mythical idea that they won’t research &
understand their worth is so foolish.

If you’re smart enough to write complex software or do complex math, you’re
smart enough to ask basic first-order questions about how you will be
compensated according to the value you bring to the table.

This dismissive idea that globalizing advanced software jobs leads to vastly
cheaper labor is silly. It boils down to literally just assuming foreign
people are dumb, don’t value themselves and don’t do basic research.

I don’t know about you, but that sure doesn’t describe the huge cohort of
software engineers that I know - from _anywhere_.

~~~
colinmhayes
If there are suddenly 10 times as many people fighting for the same number of
positions salaries will drop. That's just basic supply and demand.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
Basic supply and demand is a very poor economic model. It’s cited all the time
by armchair commenters, but rarely reflects reality.

~~~
colinmhayes
Source?

~~~
mlthoughts2018
Please don’t write comments like this. It immediately indicates you are not
open to considering other points of view and you believe the burden of effort
for improving your beliefs rests on other people instead of yourself, and that
you think this is a valid rhetorical tactic in conversation.

This point is so far beyond indisputable with massive available confirmatory
data as well as economic theory that to engage a lazy “citation needed” type
of response does more harm than good, worse than a “let me google that for
you” situation by a wide margin.

~~~
colinmhayes
You made an unsourced claim that flies in the face of established literature.
My comment was a joke because you obviously are completely uninformed. The
fact that you could call someone else an armchair economist is disgusting and
shows how awful social media is for society. Maybe you can start with wealth
of nations and work your way up from there. Please don't make any comments
like this until you have completed your required readings.

------
drawkbox
Remote work also means companies can get the best people for that company
anywhere.

Remote work means life changes can happen and you can retain the best people
for that company. With jobs and life, changes happen, people move, have
families, want to be close to family, want to change scenery, get a new
significant other, go to school, buy a house, all of these things can mean you
might have to quit if you have to physically always be in the office.

Even when companies have remote/different city offices, virtual communication
is very important anyways.

Clients and customers are almost always remote with some sprinkled in meetings
but mostly virtual communication and communication through the work.

Companies would be wise to switch to remote first thinking and processes with
a focus on virtual communication and a nice to have of physical meetups,
integration sessions etc.

Remote work helps companies focus on their external view not just their
internal machinations.

For truly unique talents and workers, location has never really mattered.

------
Barrin92
People are arguing a lot about if the claims in the post are true or not but I
feel like this misses the point. Assuming they're all true that's still a good
thing.

I expect competitiveness in every sector of the economy I don't work in, so I
have to measure myself by the same standards. If someone can do my work for
less money, hire them. We can talk about welfare for displaced workers but
employment isn't charity, the best worker who can do the work for the least
amount of money should do it, and we're all better off.

Removing geography and mobility as a limiting factor is a boon for innovation.
It will give an unprecedented amount of people a shot at a great job. Not to
mention that increased competiton for existing jobs will create a huge
incentive for entrepreneurship. Without all those cozy well paying tech jobs
lined up, there's a real incentive to starting your own company.

------
mekoka
Side question. I have noticed for a few weeks now that since I don't have a
Medium account I'm prevented from reading certain articles (like this one),
but I still have access to some other articles on the platform. Does it mean
that some authors require that the readership be part of the network too? What
are the rules?

------
Hokusai
Bold flashy predictions usually fail.

The main threat to your job is today the same that it was last year. China is
growing its influence and technical capacity. TikTok could have been an
American (or European, ...) company with American employees, it is not.

It’s easier to create a company in China and produce software there than to
hire individual developers. That may work for very small companies with
special needs, but it’s very inefficient.

If Chinese citizens are allowed to purchase American video games, hire AWS and
Azure services, etc. then it is not a big deal. Other wise the draining of
jobs will continue like has been happening for the pas two decades.

Another option is to be more protective of critical industries. As the
pandemic shows how vulnerable is the west in the supply chain.

I expect a future similar to what we had one year ago. With some more jobs
moving to China and some light increase in protectionism to avoid too much job
bleeding.

------
sequoia
> If you’re working on Wi-Fi at home, that means your job is literally up in
> the air.

This statement is hyperbolic and meaningless enough that I'm comfortable
calling it "stupid." I've been working remotely for a long time and guess
what? I moved to a big city to be closer to jobs. I am a US citizen and well
qualified but I can tell you from experience _most employers do not want to
hire remotes_.

Anyone who thinks you can just replace your colocated North American dev team
with lower-cost employees across Asia must not have tried doing this. I've
worked with _highly qualified, competent programmers_ in India whom I respect
and admire, and communication & timezones were still major issues. How do you
establish the rapport you need to resolve disagreements and come to
compromises with someone you've never met? How to you collaborate with a team
13.5 hours apart from you in time?

Furthermore, having worked in highly cross-cultural and international teams
for a good amount of time (even colocated in an office) I can tell you that
language/English proficiency is not some non-issue, it can be a _big_ issue. I
went into a recent job with the attitude of "language issues are no big deal!
We can make it work" but over a couple years of running a team it became clear
that having a team comprised of people with varied levels of English abilities
and from different countries _is_ a big deal. Think of how difficult it can be
to resolve interpersonal conflicts and miscommunications with your coworkers,
then imagine the two parties don't share a native tongue and multiply the
number of miscommunications by 10, then multiply that by the number of non-
native speakers/learners on the team. [content warning: bad metaphor] It's
like carrying around a beanbag chair–it doesn't seem hard for a few minutes
but do it all day for a week and I promise it will become exhausting.

As a side-note, hiring in South America for North American teams is cheaper &
can still be same timezone (and easier to fly in!); I think there's a lot of
growth potential there.

------
ravenstine
Anyone can already take your job.

Since there is a growing number of businesses that are accepting remote work,
that means that more potential work is available to remote workers.

Seems like people are trying to justify their preference for working in an
office. Not to diss those people, but remote workers know the kind of position
they are in if more people work remotely.

Personally, I'd rather live in a world where I'm not so dependent on one
particular employer, and where I can change jobs without having to worry about
moving away from friends and family. Who cares if someone can "take my job"?
Businesses already outsource to other parts of the world where labor is cheap,
and they get what they pay for most of the time.

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
Eh, my boss's boss not that long ago suggested that if I really want to quit,
they won't have a problem replacing me. His statement is technically true, but
then a new person would have to go through the same training and it would take
time before they were competent even if they already had experience in the
same domain. Remote does mean the pool of candidates expanded, which sucks for
me as that usually means my salary has a potential to go down, but the overall
skill set did not change. It is not that cannot be replicated, but it does
require training, which most businesses avoid like a plague these days.

edit: But then I am in banking, which is its own little world.

~~~
koheripbal
Most company geographic re-alignments happen through attrition - which
averages around 10% per year (+/\- 5% by industry).

A company could move a large chunk of its workforce to lower cost locations in
only a couple of years without the need for layoffs.

------
troughway
You can "solve" the timezone issue by having chain of command changes.

Think about all those distributed teams that are all over the place, how do
they work? They've been doing this for years now, are successful, and they
must have done something right.

From what I have seen: reporting structures are different, team sizes tend to
be smaller. In some circumstances, particular cities have "hubs" for employees
if anything needs to be done on-site.

It's not rocket surgery, it's not blindly obvious either, but there is a
solution here.

I don't like the tone of these articles because they have such a negative,
fear-porn driven bait title that it mars whatever good wisdom the author wants
to impart.

------
KoftaBob
It also means the supply of jobs available to you will greatly increase, as
you won't be limited to positions location in the area/areas you can live.

For some reason, so many of these articles and blogposts only factor in the
increased supply of applicants, and completely ignore the other side of the
coin. I think this will lead to a new equilibrium that's beneficial to both
parties.

Companies based in the bay area won't be forced to keep salaries in line with
the astronomical cost of living there, while job seekers outside of the bay
area who can't or don't want to move there, will now have access to high
paying jobs that they previously didn't.

------
jmspring
Despite a market for cheap labor, especially around CRAuD apps, companies
doing complex things require a certain level of experience and skill.

Outsourcing firms thrive on having one “knowledgeable” person who interfaces
with a client, and a bunch of cheap worker bees behind that person. Generally
the quality and deliverable are influenced by how much you sit on top of and
manage them.

As for low caliber remote talent taking jobs, the same applies... there will
be certainly a threshold where that can happen. At a certain point, though,
experience and competence are necessary. That could be anywhere, but it’s hard
to amass such remotely.

------
erosenbe0
Many service workers will still want to live in or around relatively expensive
areas.

I live just outside of Chicago: 10 minutes to the beach; 20 minutes to
downtown; 20 minutes to a hub airport; 15 minutes to top class sports,
theatre, and concert options; A+ school district with reasonable diversity;
ice rink, gymnastics center, bike trails, parks, music lessons, and art
lessons within a mile or two.

Sure, my taxes are through the roof and my house is small, but quality of life
here, particularly for families, is just unbeatable. If you go more than
another 10 miles out to get the massive sq. footage you are giving something
up.

------
johnward
"Everyone would have to sit two meters apart, which means two times the square
feet, which means two times the rent."

Ugh. If the office isn't already sitting me 6 feet apart from someone then I
don't want to work there.

~~~
BryanBigs
Before we left,a former employer was about to force my team (with allin
probably average individual compensation of $600000) from 81sq foot cubes to
rows of connected desks of 36" width. This in a city with $20sq ft office
rental rates. The official name of the model of the desk layout: the harvest
table. That was the catalyst to begin looking for a new home...

------
Noos
I think you can see this in something like commission art. If you wanted to
draw commission artwork for a book cover or what have you, you now compete
with almost everyone in the world; there are plenty of russian or south
american artists for example who have both stunning quality and lower prices.

If the job is something that is task-based and doesn't really require as much
real-time communication on demand, yeah I can see this happening. I think HN
always tends to focus on being the best, and much less on "it's good enough."

------
wildmanx
The basic premise of this post is "the key edge that you have over your
worldwide competition is that you are local". That premise is false, or at
least heavily overblown.

If the only detail barring you from working for a company which otherwise
totally really would hire you, then there are often times way around this
already. I moved half-way around the world for my current job. My competition
was therefore people from all over the world. My job won't be "taken" by
"anyone" now more than pre-Covid.

------
licebmi__at__
I've been working remote with an on-site team for a few years, and well, I'm
not sure as everyone of that remote will be the default as the pandemic ends.
At least on my current team, I could notice a lot of communication gaps that
definitely impacted the velocity of the release that management should
definitely be aware, and they are expecting going back to normal.

As I can see, that remote working might be a novelty, but I expect the inertia
to push back after the lockdowns ease up.

------
shanemhansen
This topic comes up so much and there's such a variety of misconceptions.
Everyone thinks they are an expert despite mixing up basic terms.
(remote/outsource/offshore)

For the last 12 years or so I've worked extensively in all arrangements and
here's what you need to know.

Outsource: Generally this conflates 2 actions. One is paying for a cheaper
labor market. The second is paying for less skilled people. Most of the
projected cost savings come from the latter. Most of those projected cost
savings don't appear. I remember folks hiring $10/hr DBAs in India and the
result was about what you'd expect. India is full of great DBAs and they ain't
charging $10/hr or at least they haven't for a long time. It is the case that
you can access a cheaper labor pool. Most people do this and then negate that
savings by not creating a remote-first culture and introducing massive
language and time zone barriers and friction due to multiple companies
interacting.

Offshoring: The key difference here is that these are part of your company. In
the US it's totally possible to set up an office in central/south america in-
timezone and staff it with amazing people and save some money. Well, except
for most of those folks who are willing to relocate will eventually accept
offers with FANG companies either locally or relocate. So it's a nice scheme
while it works. (Hi to all my tico friends now at Google and Amazon)

Remote: this is what most people confuse for the above two things. Remote is
about doing 2 things.

1) Expanding your hiring pool beyond a 30 minute commute from your office
(turns out that the other 99.99% of the world's population also has some great
folks).

2) Making your company culture remote-first. But that's synonymous with
writing things down and documenting things.

Sure interpersonal relationships can be trickier to bootstrap and that's a
real cost. But see #1, nobody talks about that cost.

The final thing to keep in mind is that for most big companies, there's no way
to avoid the remote cost. As soon as you open up an office in another location
you're a remote company. Hell, as many people can attest as soon as you ask
people to attend meetings on another floor or an adjacent building you find
out you're a remote company.

------
globular-toast
No they can't. They don't have the experience that I have. They can't possibly
have it because they don't already work for the company I work for.

I think some people in "the valley" are starting to brick it knowing that
they'll be competing with people with far lower salary demands from around the
world. But really the only think you'll have to worry about if your job goes
remote is having to move somewhere more affordable.

------
royaltheartist
Nobody ever "takes" anyone else's job. Management makes the decision to fire
some workers and hire others to save costs. And they'll keep doing this to
save more and more money.

As long as every company is driven by their rapacious desire for profit, they
will continue to screw over workers to net more for themselves. Thinking in
terms of another worker taking something from you lets the decisions of those
above you off the hook.

------
vs2
I am not paying to read someones blog! This is the second day in a row ... if
this was reddit the admins would ban it! Oh yeah I am off to reddit!

~~~
agustif
Just open an incognito tab then, or if you use firefox checkout this extension
[https://addons.mozilla.org/es/firefox/addon/medium-
unlimited...](https://addons.mozilla.org/es/firefox/addon/medium-unlimited-
read-for-free/)

I hate medium too, anyway for my the paywall is like a nice feature, if it's
behind it I'm probably better off not reading that shit anyways

~~~
GnarfGnarf
Brilliant! Thanks for the tip!

------
kemiller
Timezone and cultural compatibility still matter, as we've collectively
discovered over the last 30 years. Offshoring was already happening before
this and will continue to do so, but there will remain demand for people
onshore. Presumably the world will eventually have enough software developers,
but it's showing no signs of it in the foreseeable future.

------
kolla
Almost all of my work has to be performed by a citizen of my country due to
security laws so I feel pretty safe.

------
stakkur
Having worked many years with globally distributed teams, especially offshored
IT in India, I'd say...LOL.

------
quxpar
Pre-remote, I was afraid of a random person walking in off the street and
doing my job. I don't think I ever worked for a successful company that wasn't
continually hiring people in my role.

I don't think the author realizes that large businesses that rely on software
see tech as a team sport, in which camaraderie plays a huge role.
Subconsciously, they're willing to pay another $40k for a better
social/emotional experience.

Who is a theoretical startup hotshot going to prefer? Option A, who is also in
San Francisco, who talks about concerts and cool events they went to every
weekend, who stays up late hacking on fun side projects, etc etc. Option B,
ives in Omaha, nice enough person but pretty much always logs off at 5pm. Has
3 kids screaming in the background of every Zoom call. Likes board games.

That's not to say B has zero chance of employment. In my experience, B can
existed at a company but has to have some seriously strong technical chops,
know the higher-ups really well, AND be an integral part of the company in
terms of how critical infra is maintained.

~~~
joelbluminator
I'd take B over you anytime buddy. You sound like you're 19, not that there's
anything wrong with being 19. But your preference isn't everyone's preference.

~~~
sb52191
Option B sounds far more likely to stick around the company for a long period
of time, option A sounds more like the type to leave after 1-2 years for
something more "attractive".

------
csours
Nobody can take my job because they couldn't pay someone enough to do my job.
That said, my job could simply go away, and I'm working hard to make that
happen. When my job goes away, hopefully the value I demonstrated in doing
that will be enough for me to get another job.

------
delphinius81
Article doesn't cover the fact that many companies are not setup to deal with
taxation issues related to payroll for foreign employees. There's opportunity
for a payroll company to step in there and make this less painful, but tax
reporting will always be a barrier.

------
buboard
There is only one way out of it: Regulation. So far, entities have been
gatekeeping people into SV: at first it was stanford degrees, later it's just
relocation to SV. With that gone, there s no other route than regulation, like
so many other professions.

------
adwn
The economic incentives to out-source development to India have been there for
decades. In the 2000s, "everyone" (i.e., the media) was sure that soon there
would be no high-paying programming jobs left in the Western world. Well, how
did that pan out?

~~~
temporama1
Yes. Please send details on how we surely implement the microservices.

~~~
BubRoss
First, start by making a giant empty class heirarchy in java. Once you have
created a dozen classes that inherit from each other, but not yet made any
variables or functions, send it right over, your work is done my man.

~~~
temporama1
First we make the Spring Boot with the common package yes? Ok. Please reply
immediately.

------
toss1
>"Remote work means anyone can take your job"

It also means you can take anyone else's job

It is up to us to provide better value than competitors

It is up to managers to recognize that value is barely related to initial
cost/sticker price/hourly rate

Time will tell how those trends sort

------
29athrowaway
Anyone can take your job? Not so fast.

\- People on the same or adjacent timezones, or people willing to adapt to
another vastly different timezone.

\- People with language fluency and proficiency.

\- People that can pass an interview.

Apply those 3 filters and the pool of people to pick from is greatly reduced.

------
deagle50
I moved into sales partly as a hedge against this. It doesn't help much now as
nobody is taking in-person meetings but I suspect (and hope) that companies
will still prefer to hire account teams in close proximity to their customers.

~~~
justQandA
This is an interesting angle.

Did you move from software development to sales?

Is this technical sales, "Sales engineer", or something different?

I'm curious how one transitions without any sales experience.

~~~
deagle50
Yep, sales engineer. I was a infrastructure consultant and SRE before that.

It happened through meeting the sales teams of the vendors I worked with.
Eventually one of them asked me if I wanted to apply for a sales engineer
role. He then referred me and vouched. Always be nice to your vendors and
partners.

------
hindsightbias
Lets see everyones release schedules so far this year. And this is with your
A-team.

No doubt hiring out cheaper will bring the synergy and velocity organizations
pine for. We should all be writing stuff like this to kneecap our competitors.

------
ArtDev
Remote work means you can take anyone's job. Without having to move to a
crappy US city where they can't find any talent. I have been a remote
contractor for 7+ years so, for me, this is a great thing!

------
dnissley
Any reason someone better suited for it shouldn't be able to take my job?

~~~
JacksonGariety
The idea is that they will accept significantly lower pay and do the job well
enough to get by.

Then again, what's wrong with that? Theoretically it just levels the playing
field.

The real inequality is higher up the food chain anyway...

------
klmadfejno
I think the biggest population at risk if useless office jobs that have just
had staying power for legacy reasons. Once those go remote and off shore
they're never coming back to high cost of living areas.

------
JBiserkov
"If you cannot be replaced, you will never be promoted."

~~~
MattGaiser
Don't most tech people leave to get their promotions?

------
takizawa11
The article also ignores the legal and tax implications of outsourcing work.
At least currently, you can't just hire individuals from other countries
indiscriminately.

~~~
dragandj
You can’t hire them as employees, but you can absolutely hire them to perform
tasks that you pay them for. For some types of tasks it’s even better for both
sides becausethere’s less obligations and overhead expenses.

------
atemerev
And this is good. Why you should hold yourself invulnerable when there is
talent and competition? I lived and worked in 6 different countries; I am all
for diversity.

------
bamboozled
What if your already remote? It doesn't change anything.

~~~
paucanosa2
interesting

------
technick
I don't think much changes for most people in technology. We've always had
cross hairs on our back when working at companies without values.

------
mister_hn
The biggest change will be that anyone who is cheaper will take your job but
low price means usually less quality.

Let's fight against lower salaries once for all.

------
runawaybottle
I think software developers need to think about this obsessively because we
don’t want to get blind sided like cab drivers were with ride sharing.

------
jamil7
I'm a remote freelancer, no one has taken my job(s) yet. I also don't make Bay
Area money so maybe this never applied to me.

------
kriro
I'm looking down at my half full glass and all I can think is....fantastic
news. Remote work means I can take any job I want.

------
tagami
2 meters apart means 4x the square feet, not 2x

------
ilaksh
That's one of the reasons I outsourced myself to Mexico and adopted a
lifestyle that works with a Mexican salary. Lol.

------
k__
Why?

I wasn't running around begging companies to hire me, they came to me and
asked if I'd work for them.

------
sabujp
remote work should mean that software engineers should get payed exactly the
same anywhere on earth. If they had to go through the same interview process
to get a job and are literally doing the exact same job then they should be
payed the same as a SWE in SV or NYC

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
You can try paying software engineers exactly the same anywhere on Earth, but
SV and NYC engineers generally won't work at "anywhere on Earth" prices.

------
mbrodersen
Remote work means you can quit any time and get a better job.

------
ken
And non-remote work means a virus already did.

------
elicash
Remote Work Means Anyone Can Give You A Job

------
knorker
… and you can take anyone's job.

------
huffmsa
Means I can take anyone's job.

------
cameronbrown
There's some serious irony that traditionally globalist brogrammer types are
now whining about outsourcing (to "poorer" areas, or other countries). You
guys didn't care when it was happened to blue collar workers, and then go and
rag on Trump voters who didn't see any other way out.

Then there's the other faction that doesn't understand basic economics and
expects Bay Area pay from Bangladesh so they can live like a king. Your
employer will pay the minimum they can. Salaries are only high right now
because of the concentration of talent and cost of living.

To those people, please, get over yourselves and stop thinking you're somehow
better because you went to college or don't do manual labour.

Edit: Wow. Downvote in five seconds. Really makes you think how much effort
people are putting into processing the words I wrote.

~~~
syndacks
Would be curious for you to expand on what you mean by "traditionally
globalist brogrammer types."

~~~
cameronbrown
It's a generalisation to be sure.

But many programmers (from Silicon Valley in particular) or other middle class
workers like finance, law, etc.. are in this weird bubble totally isolated
from reality. The working class has been complaining about outsourcing for
decades and I just find it hypocritical that this bubble is only just starting
to complain because now it affects them with remote work.

It's elitist attitude and my number one complaint about our industry.

~~~
y-c-o-m-b
On the contrary - from my own anecdotal experience - programmers have been
complaining about outsourcing forever. There was an especially strong distaste
for it at Intel where outsourcing was more common. I've seen countless
articles and opinions here on HackerNews outlining the tremendous loss of
quality and productivity by outsourcing work over the years. Have you
considered if you're the one living in the bubble?

------
blunte
Oh the irony.

------
biolurker1
the way it should be right?

------
paucanosa2
good post

------
znpy
this article is paywalled.

------
betimsl
Very true for parasite employees. But to employees who actually work and have
a basic understanding of self fulfillment, it means nothing more than
environment change.

~~~
Lio
“Parasite employees” is a somewhat unfortunate phrase.

I would imagine that any employer who thinks of their staff like that is
already outsourcing or planning to outsource anyway.

