Yep! It angries me that I always have to fight for remote work, but it is not a problem for the teams down the corridor that just outsourced the work somewhere in this universe.

IME, outsourcing works because you get (most) management onus placed on the outsourcer. Remote workers with in-office management doesn't feature that.

Having been part of outsourced projects since 2008,I would say that is a nice theory.

You require the same amount of in-office management.

Every time that management decided as you say, they got something else as delivery.

So true. In fact, it can be even worse managing an outsourcer style vendor, since the natural industry pressures lead to outsourcers being very incentivized to find the very minimum possible effort they can spend on a client project without losing the contract.

As a result, getting more effort out of an outsourcer may feel as annoying as getting your insurance company to approve your claim -- their entire company culture/process has evolved and/or been designed to prevent this.

By contrast, individual employees (remote or otherwise) might get lazy or burnt out or have personal problems or something, but few of them are actually Wally from Dilbert, using all their available effort to avoid having to make any effort

the outsourcee does not share the same values as the ourtsourcing company, therefore if you have any focus on long-term values such as quality then outsourcing does not work.

The outsourcee is always motivated to do the minimum work compared to an in-house team that can focus on quality and efficiency for the long term benefit.

That is so wrong. Outsourcers require an insane amount of management. Add 12 hours of time difference to the mix and the real fun starts.

They require a ton of product management, of course. They don't require career management (recruiting, hiring, getting them to show up engaged, etc), which is what I meant (but not at all what I said).

> top developer" != "open source developer".

Very true, the thing is, companies go for developers with tons of OSS code and conferences both as speakers and attendees for two reasons:

First is the fact that you become a known quantity, OSS code is code that you have produced and that any prospective employer can look at and see its "quality". It also solidifies you as more of a domain expert which in turn allows you to get better wages.

Second, having employees with OSS contributions and speaking at conferences is good for the bottom line of employers, they can "gloat" more easily on how they have the "top talent" and are thought leaders of industry. This in turn allows them to charge their clients more and lets the find prospects easier.

It's all about perception and influence.

*Ninja Edited for grammar.

It is a very small minority, but we're discussing "top developers", which is an even smaller minority. They shouldn't have problems finding remote jobs.