[hiremelocally]

New roles at my FAANG company are mostly outside HCOL areas, and often outside the US. It's not just outsourcing. These roles have real hiring standards, are getting real work for real teams, and they're remote. Outsourcing feels different this time because it's not some offshore contract team; it's full-time company stuff. Makes me wonder if it's just because WFH proved it works, so why not hire from Krakow?

Edit: US policies towards H-1Bs and attitudes towards immigration add to this.

[alephnerd]

> Makes me wonder if it's just because WFH proved it works, so why not hire from Krakow?

As someone in the room when those decisions were/are made, pretty much.

Additionally, when the COVID recession began (before the stimulus package) most employers were laying off employees on work visas or giving them the option to open and expand offices in their home country.

A lot of senior Indian and Polish Googlers took the offer, and that's how you saw the massive Google expansion in India and Poland over the past few years.

Additionally, the Indian, Polish, Israeli, Romanian, and other governments are giving massive subsidizes to attract GCCs, while states like NC and GA which used to offer subsidizes to open offices in RTP became much less responsive and inefficient due to domestic politics (turns out it's easier for local politicans to be elected on culture war topics instead of tech hub expansion).

I can pick up a phone right now and get connected with senior bureaucrats in Czechia, Poland, and even the UK and India in a day if I offer to open a $20M R&D hub - most US states don't do that anymore.

Edit: can't reply

> For better or for worse, the most desirable places in the US not only refuse to participate in the race to the bottom anymore

Absolutely, but tbf, you don't really need subsidizes to attract business in an already established hub becuase the ecosystem already exists and the risks and mitigation strategies are well understood.

A subsidy helps when I am entering a new or unknown ecosystem to mitigate risk.

Additionally, local governments in the major hubs like NYC (even under Mamdani) and SF are fairly responsive to business needs and requests.

This is why I keep harping that in the world we live in today, American SWEs need to live in the major tech hubs because the density of employers and opportunities is significant, which reduces risks of becoming structurally unemployed as a SWE.

[rangestransform]

For better or for worse, the most desirable places in the US not only refuse to participate in the race to the bottom anymore, they actively pursue a vendetta against well paying tech jobs opening up (see: Amazon HQ2 in NYC)

[g947o]

You might want to check out how their HQ2 in Virginia is doing before commenting on anything about HQ2.

Most New Yorkers would tell you NY dodged a bullet by not accepting Amazon's corporate BS.

P.S. NYC is far from "the most desirable place in the US". Even as someone who loves the place, I can clearly tell you that most people and companies don't want to be in NYC.

[ajsjsnsb]

For other readers, this is why things like nationalism are important (and so heavily taboo). They're the most effective antidote to this kind of immorality. Unions are an ok compromise, but still allow businesses to leave (rust belt, etc). I’m assuming above poster is an American and is happy to do business, live, etc in America while hollowing out its base for the sake of profits. Paying taxes does not absolve this kind of anti American behavior.

We need elites whose goal is to help their fellow Americans, not rootless capitalists willing to sell out their countrymen for profit. The goal of business is not to make money, it’s to enrich the people.

[jordanb]

I was working for a company who tried to do that. We opened offices in Warsaw and Krakow and started trying to hire. We really couldn't get anyone, as everyone else had the same idea at the same time. People in those markets who were good and spoke english well basically had open offers from their choice of American firms.

I think we then were trying to open in Ukraine until the war.

The problem was that the talent pool just wasn't very deep and the thundering herd of American companies crowding in sucked it dry. Most of the people we did end up hiring in Poland were actually blue card holders from India.

After that we got bought by a PE firm who decided to do a GCC strategy focused on India, managed by McKinsey, it went as well as any other McKinsey lead outsourcing effort and the company is now spiraling.