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Comment by compiler-guy | Hacker News Reader

“There is zero loyalty.”

In business, even in the US, there is almost never loyalty. Or, perhaps more precisely: In business, you have to buy loyalty.

I guarantee that there is a price at which you could buy a very stable, very competent team in India. But then it wouldn’t be super cheap outsourcing any more, and the benefits aren’t so great.

If you want stability in your workforce, you gotta pay for it. Whether in cash, working conditions, or some other way.

Pay for cheap labor, get cheap labor. And don’t be surprised or disappointed that you got it.

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I think there is some loyalty. As an example, my younger son is looking for his first job, I'm gonna see if the local grocery store will hire him, but I talked to him and said "Look Dylan, if you get a job there then you have to stick with it. They are going to spend time to train you, that's an investment, you need to stick with it even if you get bored."

If US engineers bounced from job to job as much as the out-sourcing guys seem to it would be a red flag. I don't know what the norm is today, but back when I was hiring, people that didn't stick it out for at least a year at each company (and had no explanation, things happen, I'd allow for that), were considered less desirable than someone who stuck it out for longer.

But in general, I agree with your point that you gotta pay if you want quality people. Good people are expensive. The lure of out-sourcing is a pipedream so far as I can tell.

> In business, even in the US, there is almost never loyalty.

There is loyalty here. You don't hire someone and they come in to work and work on OTHER PEOPLE'S PROJECTS. You don't get people lying to your face daily about their skills, it comes up pretty quickly that they can or can't do the work.

Loyalty isn't just leaving because you have got a better offer.

> There is loyalty here

Correct, but your OP is saying you need to buy that loyalty.

Unfortunately the people counting the theoretical profit are different from the people paying the hidden costs.

I’ve seen awesome devs leave after being assigned to check and ensure the quality of an offshore team.

It’s more often than not a torturous and demoralizing task.

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