[ghotli]

But hiring engineers isn't constrained by region or location so this feels like an odd argument to me.

Rails has been around long enough that there's surely no shortage of junior to very very senior engineers that will write code for you from wherever they happen to live.

[dsl]

Programming is not tied to geography unless you are dealing with physical equipment (you probably don't want three grocery store self checkout machines in your living room) or have any sort of security requirements for the project.

[ghotli]

I get the argument for sure. Neither example is a really good environment for choosing rails specifically.

Also, not that it really matters but I just happen to be a counterpoint to both examples. I'm at home surrounded by hardware for my current work and also wrote / led a remote team instrumental in passing a federal banking audit atop infrastructure as code.

I'm on team sure there's use-cases for local hiring but they're so hard in the minority these days + it's a rails thread that I felt like my stance in my prior comment probably did hold in all cases where that might be the right tool for the job. Like all things though, it depends. :)

[newaccount74]

I'm good enough at English, and I've learned to collaborate somewhat effectively remotely, but if given the choice, I still prefer collaborating with people in person and speaking my native language.

[ghotli]

Perfectly reasonable. I'll freely admit I'd never considered this argument and a language barrier does make a lot of sense. In some cases that constraint could affect the talent pool significantly.