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Comment by 908B64B197 | Hacker News Reader

> It goes both ways: local talent will learn from the biggest companies in the world without having to leave, meaning their know how can be turned to local entities as well.

It really doesn't. You end up with a whole segment of engineers that effectively become invisible to the local tech scene, because they are way above the local rates. Local companies are, basically, a waste of time for them.

Also, keep in mind that working for a foreign subsidiary opens up many additional visa to someone who wants to relocate to the US main office. So a "first remote" approach might actually accelerate brain drain in the long run.

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Unfortunately I agree with this - I'm currently doing some work in tech across sub-saharan Africa and what we're seeing is that local devs from Cameroon to Kenya to Tunisia (okay not sub-saharan but we happen to have an office there) who are any good are now working on the global marketplace and not available to local companies with rare exceptions (e.g. junior who haven't figured out how to compete globally yet or happen to both have the preference to work in person and don't want to move away).

It's a valid point, but it's not the whole story. When there is too much of a gap between the local scene and the global scene, there is an isolation effect.

But it doesn't mean these engineers live in their remote bubble. There will be a halo effect of showing the way to local talent, we've seen when subcontracting html integration to a remote shop. Once the contract and legal framing was established, it was easier for us to ask their junior member to do administration tasks or other basic data entry tasks.

The other path is for these higher level engineers to move directly to high level positions in local firm. You'll see a junior engineer by EU standards move to a CTO like position in a local company or startup.

All in all, I think the local part still tremendously benefits from having highly competent remote workers.

> But it doesn't mean these engineers live in their remote bubble.

They kinda do. Mentoring, for instance, will happen with employees of the US corp. You'll effectively have the best devs in the foreign country mentoring early career Americans at HQ.

> The other path is for these higher level engineers to move directly to high level positions in local firm. You'll see a junior engineer by EU standards move to a CTO like position in a local company or startup.

Does that actually happens? I mean, I can see that a senior engineer at FAANG matches the level of some local companies CTO, but will these local businesses really give out such a role to an engineer barely in his 30's? That's of course if he hasn't transferred to HQ yet...

> It really doesn't. You end up with a whole segment of engineers that effectively become invisible to the local tech scene, because they are way above the local rates.

If remote salaries will be significantly higher than local ones many governments will be tempted to raise/introduce taxes on foreign income (and in authoritarian ones it is easy to implement). Since cross-border payments in most countries are closely monitored it would be not hard to enforce. Which in turn would make local jobs more attractive in comparison.

> many governments will be tempted to raise/introduce taxes on foreign income [...] Which in turn would make local jobs more attractive in comparison.

That's a double edged sword. Because your top performers are now seeing the local government trying to fleece them and it just makes coming to the US even more attractive.

It would also be a red flag for anyone in the country, to be fair. Instead of looking at what's wrong with the countries' tech ecosystem and fixing it to help local companies innovate and compete, they just rent-seek successful companies.

Argentina did that, their brain drain was INSANE, we had thousands immigrate to Uruguay.

The holdovers jump through all kind of hoops, many involving crypto.

The salary gap does decrease, here in Uruguay companies are paying what would have been thought of as insane just a few years ago (still 50% below US rates, but way way higher any other job), and we're getting thousands of people immigrating from all over Latin America and even Spain.

It does make providing to local companies much less desirable.

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