We basically shit talk a bunch of examples like nimby,anti vac etc,but one of the thing that we talked about that really stick with me after the conversation is the topic of wfh. Alot of people favors wfh, and I am no different, as I am especially in love with the amount of time saved from the shitty commute I had , but one of the potentially negative consequence that we discussed was the possibility of outsource.
This is in fact quite an old concern, and one that that has been disproven for the good last 2 decades, I think some older colleagues was telling me back in the days outsourcing developers was all the rage 20 years ago, and it has prove to be mildly successful if not irrelevant toward the current total compensation and work model of software engineers in US.
However now that many companies are exploring full wfh, I am very curious in what is stopping them in hiring people in UK or people that live in low cost of living area in US?
Cost of living is 2.46% less expensive than oakland
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/London?displayCurre... https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/San-Francisco
while their salary is almost half of bayarea
https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/London/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/San-Franci...
I don't believe the difference in salary is a matter of talent, and so the question would be what does employer gain by hiring people living in SF/new york/seattle?
Has covid artificially accelerated the remote conference technology such that we will see company re experimenting outsourcing again? And how will that impact the overall work model and compensation of US engineers in general?
I am curious in what everyone thinks
The jobs that haven't been outsourced are profit centers, that require innovation and collaboration. This means highly skilled talent, being in the same time zone for collaboration, cultural context (language etc.).
Once most of the tech work moves into cost centers and big tech growth and margins starts converging to like 2-5%, you will start seeing widespread outsourcing to still keep those stocks valued high. Right now ROI per employee is still very high in tech due to scale and margins, so no reason to think about cost.
So I think this is still a long ways off. If big tech is successful leveraging other tech hubs for a profit center (they are trying), I would expect other places competing for high level talent to converge to SF salaries. I would probably bet on less YoY growth in salaries and not a reduction in pay.