I've decided that's it's a personal decision to a company. Many find benefits in having some teams in India or Asia, some don't so they don't. We should really divorce politics from this discussion. I'm ok with company A saying they like Indian devs and company B saying they enjoy the benefits of keeping it in their geographical area. I've seen outsourcing backfire. I've seen it succeed. I've seen team leads emerge in India and direct an entire product from 10,000 miles away. I've also seen dead weight that I had to go out of my way to get productivity from. You see it all and you'll get it all, so why the fuss?

Because people are afraid that they won't be able to command 350K a year salaries anymore. The fear is that the "good old days" of SV salaries are over is being materialized.

Imo its overdue, but I also am perfectly happy making an average salary in a HCOL area, with aspirations to move to a low or middle COL area.

I live in a low cost of living area and get the good and bad of my choices.

that's a common technical people pitfall. politics permeates society, and ignoring it is only to your own detriment exposing you form exploitation of those whom play the political game, of which you most assuredly participate in, whether you want an active role in it or not.

In one view, the one I had for a long time, companies are free agents. They can set up where they want, come and go as they please, hire and fire at will. They add value by creating jobs and profit and society should be thankful for that.

A different view, one I hear a lot in the more intellectual conservative circles (Brexit and some Trump supporters), is that companies have a duty to their people, and society at large. They should train people (through apprenticeship, rather than strip-mining universities / the local market), try to promote stability, avoid huge disruptive layoffs, etc.

I used to think the first but have come around to the second a bit.

No, it's a pitfall people fall into when they read politics into any topic.

Politics permeates society, and by design.

Also this thread is about employment and moving jobs across countries, which is an extremely politically changed topic.

that quite literally requires reaching compromises in place of whatever optimal mathematical solution may exists.

[1] including people that might want a certain solution to be implemented _and_ fail. they do exist, especially in older groups where the power structure is fragmented and the dynamic dysfunctional.

These decisions have externalities both positive and negative. "Divorcing politics" means ignoring those externalities. It is unlikely to happen.

I have come to realize that the only people who ever say this are people with no skin in the game, i.e., who aren't in the gunsights. I suspect (actually, know) you'd feel differently if you were training your own replacements just prior to your unemployment.

They’d pay less than that.

Uber is preparing for a death spiral as their financial backing runs out and they need to shrink to the profitable markets.

If Uber radically shifts its focus to focus solely on smaller profitable markets and the people working there are swapped out then has the company ultimately failed/died and had to be reborn?

It may not be a General Magic style death but it seemed reasonable to me that at least philosophically it is a death spiral nonetheless.

Many of their top markets have ruled their drivers are employees (or requiring similar compensation/benefits), except Brazil. I'm unsure if they can remain anywhere near their current size (versus the headcount of a traditional livery service) based on that regulatory environment, even with McKinsey style transformations to their business (ie offshoring).

> "But one detail in particular caught my eye. About 24 percent of Uber’s bookings—all the money that customers pay through the app and in cash, including driver earnings—occur in just five cities: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and São Paulo." [1]

London: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/19/uber-lose... ("Uber loses appeal over driver employment rights")

France: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-court/top-french-cou... ("Top French court deals blow to Uber by giving driver 'employee' status")

California: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/california-regulator-uber-lyf... ("Uber, Lyft drivers are employees according to California regulator")

New Jersey: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/nyregion/uber-new-jersey-... ("New Jersey has demanded that Uber pay $649 million for years of unpaid employment taxes for its drivers, arguing that the ride-hailing company has misclassified the workers as independent contractors and not as employees.")

New York: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/nyregion/uber-drivers-pay... ("New York City regulators are moving toward significantly raising wages for drivers for Uber and other ride-hailing apps.")

[1] https://slate.com/business/2019/04/uber-ipo-nyc-london-risks...

That alone should make people suspicious of this legislation. In the long run, this is really, really good for Uber/Lyft.

I've seen that consistently across companies in the past decade. Europe salaries have been stagnating while India and China can be growing 10% a year. The gap, assuming there was one 20 years ago, didn't last long.

The Indians I've worked with who returned say they did it because life was easier. Sure they make less money on India, but in India servants come every day to cook and clean (for about 60 cents a day). As one guy said "I know how to cook, but I didn't realize I'd be cooking every meal"

The best engineers I've ever worked with were definetly not making that sort of money, mostly because they were the sort of people that didn't like going to interviews and were more interested in tinkering with their side projects and hobbies than competative careers.

One of the reasons to move to India would be the availability of talent even if it is at comparable cost. Companies like to scale and lack of talent is a risk they want to mitigate.

This is not how ratios work.

If B/G is high, G/B is low. But if P is a very high number G/B * P must be a decently high number as well.

I have worked in one, 80% of the work is in making the managers both India & American look good to upper management.

India is also a huge market for uber.

Disclaimer : am Dutch.

papadag : https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/dutch-dads-and-t...

Set the "Steuerklasse" to 1 for singles, 3 for married employees.

Closer to 150..

Are other engineering disciplines valued higher?

That a new grad in SV can out-earn a seasoned dev located elsewhere was never sustainable.

People will point out that the rent is absurdly high too, and maybe it is, but I'd also wager that these employees are renting from colleagues higher up who approve these salaries because they know they'll get a large cut.

Based on the salaries of my friends in SF, $150k is a very reasonable salary that allows a fantastic lifestyle.

No, maybe you aren't going to $100/plate restaurants every night or living in a $5000/month luxury studio, but there are plenty of great apartments in Oakland (where I live) for $1500-2000/month.

What's actually started to become jarring is the difference between SF proper and the rest of the region. SF rents seem to be almost 2x comparable places in the East Bay, plus the general price level is higher from Prop C and all the other insane junk the electorate wants. 2x the cost and the city is rapidly becoming a tent camp, I'm happy to live a little farther out and commute to work 1-2x/week when I'm not WFH.

I think even Ukraine or Belarus do.

The engineer is paid less than the value they produce because they don't assume any of the risk. If the product they produce turns out to be worthless or break, they don't have to pay their salary back.

Engineers are never fired? Not even when the company shuts down?

> If the company goes bankrupt, will the engineer be willing to bail the company out?

Sometimes yes, with their (and mine) taxes.

Engineers never lose assets because their work doesn't produce value, or destroys value. Engineers aren't liable for the success of their work. Engineers don't have to return their salary if they don't produce value.

> Sometimes yes, with their (and mine) taxes.

This is an argument for everyone capturing the value produced by companies, not the employee. If you want to argue for harder taxation of corporations, or fewer business incentives, then sure. But this is unrelated to the relationship between the engineer and the company.

Didn't think so.

The gap is a function of Moore's Law. If Moore's Law slows down, the gap will narrow. If not, then not.

Or ”senior engineers”, but anyway.