That assumes being the best software engineer is a trait you're born with rather than something you learn. That's unlikely.

It's much more likely that the best software engineers are concentrated in places where everyone receives a very high level of education. As education varies massively across the world, the best software engineers probably aren't distributed based on population sizes.

I can see where you're coming from, but the reason i ignored the distribution function is that it's very complex. You're right that education is a factor. But it's only one. If you took 2 (groups of) prospective software engineers, would the fact that India is a poor country, with a lot more respect for engineers, where education is much more demanding and less accommodating not mean you ended up with better (more robust, more independent, better at working without assistance) engineers from the Indian group that the other group?

And even if India only produces say one tenth the rate of great engineers that the EU does, you still want those!

Im actually more than happy to admit the other side too by the way: it drives me nuts when politicians commit to be tough on immigration except for skilled immigrants of course. Why am I or you competing for jobs and getting lower salaries because we got on and got educated but an unskilled labourer deserves a monopoly? I'm just saying, there are plenty of great people in every country. The quick path to improve home is to get them to come here.

"India[...] where education is much more demanding and less accommodating not mean you ended up with better (more robust, more independent, better at working without assistance) engineers from the Indian group that the other group?"

I've never heard anyone ever online or in person praise Indian universities or describe Indian workers on average as more independent. The descriptions that I'm aware of are far less flattering, including from Indians themselves.

What are the above statements based on? Is there any university ranking or study you can reference?

"I'm just saying, there are plenty of great people in every country. The quick path to improve home is to get them to come here."

The wise thing to do is support local workers and train them to become better instead of stealing the "brains" of another country. Western Europe already did this with Eastern Europe, and those countries are significantly poorer for it, because a huge chunk of their intellectual elites have left their respective countries.

I think you massively underestimate the training required to become "good" doctors, lawyers, engineers, finance people, political scientists, professors etc.

Folks specializing in these areas aren't really interchangeable. Thus, having a small number of "good" in each of these still starves demand.

Why not let those people live in their countries with their families, friends, cultures and traditions, and simply import the amazing software they're going to write?

The idea that the we need to concentrate the best people in a few cities in the west is both absurd and dangerous.

Outsourcing was a trend ten or so years ago. It seems to work well enough for grunt work, but for more complex stuff, not so much.