[randcraw]

There were several chapters in the history of US IT outsourcing. After Perot Systems in the 1980s and Tata/Infosys/etc around 2000, a third era has been underway for the past 5 years or so: extending IT operations to parts of the US and Eastern Europe with much lower labor costs than large US cities, esp. as compared to the US left coast.

This has worked far better than the 'Tata' chapter which exported to very cheap Asia where staff tech skills and the support model were too often haphazard and frequently underperformed. Hiring remote staff in new-growth US cities with lower CoL (e.g. Charlotte NC or Austin TX) has delivered capable staff and nearly synchronous operating hours to the main office. However in the past 2-3 years, IT labor costs have risen greatly in 'secondary' US cities, reducing those savings substantially.

In my experience, remote staff in eastern Europe have skills equal to US folks, but the 5 hour mismatch in daytime hours and their inability to visit US sites where non-IT R&D work is done and data is acquired does hamstring this model.

I wouldn't be surprised if a 4th era of outsourcing arises soon: remote work in small towns across the US and in western Europe. European IT wages often seem to be 50% or more below US large cities. That differential is likely to diminish as remote work increasingly is established as a new norm.

[sepin4]

While I was working in my previous job for some clients in USA, I regularly had meetings starting from 6PM up to 10PM local time. I'm from Bulgaria. We have 7 hours difference with east coast. I had so much compensation hours/overtime that I was earning 20-25% more on top of my salary(outside of office hours are payed with multipliers) and had extra vacation days. Nowadays I'm not so inclined to make this much overtime, however I'm OK working with shifted office hours.