Comment by al2o3cr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by al2o3cr | Hacker News Reader

Summary and comments on the points of this article:

* remote work widens the competitive playing field. Boo hoo. If you think non-remote work is somehow immune to offshoring, take a look at the last three decades for counterexamples.

* remote work enables you to be forgotten: sure, if your managers suck. Again, see gestures at the entire industry for examples of people getting "forgotten" at in-person offices.

* remote work breaks large companies: better phrasing - "remote work makes it plainly obvious that large companies are broken"

* remote work can stifle your career growth: again, sure - if your managers suck. They likely suck in person too, in that case.

* Conclusion: "what if instead of remote work companies just stopped acting like companies act"

As a content marketer, Sean is doing a great job of supporting a target customer persona: sucky bosses who are desperate to find a way to get back to an arrangement that makes it harder to spot how much they suck. I'm sure he'll get a lot of clicks.

Just because offshoring was happening before remote work doesn't mean remote work won't accelerate it's adoption. Part of the reason its not already ubiquitous is because we are still working out the best way to do remote work, the more that gets refined the more attractive offshoring looks. Americans will get priced out of the market and they should be concerned about that.

> Americans will get priced out of the market and they should be concerned about that.

It’s just good planning to have multiple potential forms of income. Programming might be the thing I do that can pay the highest, but I have plan B, plan C, and plan D ready to be put into action if I suddenly don’t have a career in software engineering, or I don’t want a career in software engineering.

Interestingly enough, having options also puts you in a stronger position when discussing salaries and benefits with your employer or perspective employer.

What's your plan B?

>... I have plan B, plan C, and plan D ready to be put into action if I suddenly don’t have a career in software engineering, or I don’t want a career in software engineering.

I would like to read more about that if you would care to share more details. I cannot imagine a career in anything but software, but this year has me very low on contract work and some backup plans are something I am trying to devise.

Very skeptical of this. The reality is that most professions shut people out unless they have very specific backgrounds, otherwise you'd see service workers routinely jump to something higher paying. A degree may be enough to get more of a foot in door somewhere, but it's very tough. Chances are you wind up doing something highly undesirable, unless you manage to go the self-employed "entrepreneur" route.

WTF are you talking about? That's not how careers work. If this whole profession of mine doesn't work out, it's not like I can just pivot to something else. There is no plan B, C, or D other than start begging for any job I can get.

Good communication skills and soft skills are even more important when you work remotely. I’m sure there are offshore teams that are really excellent at this, but unless the offshoring is for stand-alone teams the comms combined with the time zones are going to be brutal vs a more expensive domestic squad.

DevOps reports research seems to bear this out, but you never know if management will figure that out before they make the decision.

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