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Could tariffs make hiring foreign workers less profitable thereby ensuring domestic talent gets hired at a fair wage?
this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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Tariffs don't work for service roles.
Anything where the output of the job isn't physical, e.g. writing code, designing something, answering a phone, is super hard to track.
This is actually why the US seems to be running a trade deficit with so many countries. Companies like Google, Meta and Amazon take money from all over the world in exchange for services like advertising, and then it eventually gets spent on goods from other countries.
Yea, if I ever saw 100k euros as a dev, I'd shit my pants from happiness. Best I ever got was ~60k dollars as a senior + teamlead in an american company which was utter hell to work at.
US dev salaries are much higher than in Europe and €100k in Europe is just fine. Either you're a junior or plain lying.
Salary depends heavily on where the worker is located, not so much the employer. American companies don't pay overseas workers as much as they pay American workers.
Or I am a senior that was paid $60k. People don't pay for polish devs the same they pay for finnish ones or german ones.
Well, move to Germany.
Freelancing rates does not mean income. Your actual take home pay would be much less, after taxes, insurance, unbilled time
Yeah, no shit, I also took $60k gross, not net and had to pay all of that.
BOGLEX MUTHAFUCKA, DO YOU SPEAK IT?
He really thought it was a flex! What a scumbag
All else aside, "Boglex" has gotta be one of the ugliest names I've ever heard... Maybe it's clever in German and I'm just too uncultured to get it?
The company Boglex is Romanian. Their CEO's name is Romanian. He's shilling for senior Romanian engineers.
I wouldn't be surprised if this dude is the "CEO" of a small company where he is making posts on linkedin while an assistant connects all senior Romanian engineers and contracts them to German companies. All while extracting money from both sides.
Maybe it’s clever in German and I’m just too uncultured to get it?
Rest assured: No it isn't. It sounds shitty to German ears, too.
Sounds like an over engineered toilet model being hawked in a mall display or infomercial or something, imho.
Check out the boglex supreme in action! It can flush a bowling ball in 0.04 seconds flat! Watch it take this whole head of lettuce! Amazing! Impressed yet? Well it has heated seats, that’s right two of them, and a bidet function coming in at 300psi that will make your bum squeaky! Yours today for 25 easy payments of $199.99! Buy now and you’ll also get a pair noise reduction headphones and the special cleaning equipment absolutely free!
It sounds like plural for booger....
Or a suplex being done on a booger
No it is also ugly in German.
So assuming a 50% lower salary as advertised, that means these guys only placed 50xGerman salary Developer in 2024. So assuming a high commission of 20% of an annual salary, those guys made a total money of 10 Developer salaries in 2024. More realistically we are looking at something between 5-10 salaries. According to their linkedin they have 51-200 employees, which probably includes the 100 Devs they rented out. So their Germany business is inefficient and underdeveloped.
They also advertise that they do some programming themselves and are active on other markets. Still it seems dubious that they know much about the German market and could offer people that are pulling their weight.
It's so shameless innit? He puts on the veneer of caring about quality, but then gives up the game by admitting the real goal is the cheapest labor possible coughslaverycough. Why stop at Romania if you want cheap labor? Just outsource it all to India or Nigeria, we all know you would do it in a heartbeat if your precious quarterly profits were on the line.
Edit: didn't realize the guy was Romanian so at least the shilling makes more sense, but I still get the feeling he's not doing his employees any favors.
He puts on the veneer of caring about quality, but then gives up the game by admitting the real goal is the cheapest labor possible coughslaverycough.
I don't even see any veneer there. "Especially if you're building lean, moving fast, or trying to scale without blowing your burn rate" doesn't exactly scream "I want to make something nice". Dude, stop moving and scaling, just sit down and build.
I'm so glad I have hobby projects where I can do just that, but software engineering has stopped being a profession I look at with pride. Everything is broken by design and costs a fortune at the same time.
Good blog you might like: https://ratfactor.com/tech-nope
Thanks, I'll have a look.
Because the guy is Romanian. He's helping out his comrades. Well played!
A former employer of mine used to work with a Belarus team (long before the attack on Ukraine). And another company I used to work for is partnering with a company from Ghana. They are called AmaliTech and do mostly Salesforce related stuff. If it's done properly, that's a good thing. African talents get international experience and a well paying job without leaving their country. As long as they are seen as real team members with proper contracts, onboarding, and as long as they aren't replaced every three weeks.
Seriously? I’ve upped both quality and throughput by specifically hiring Romanian dev teams. They’re (in my limited sample size, admittedly) excellent.
We didn’t cheap out at as low as 50% though.
The problem usually is that remote teams work for multiple clients and are rarely onboarded properly. So they just churn out code regardless of client specific requirements or standards. If you treat remote teams as actual people and staff members, you can achieve great results.
Another comment that’s helped me with a new perspective, thanks. The times I’ve worked with Romanian teams, they’ve been dedicated to our company/project.
I didn't say anything about the quality of Romanian engineers, nor Indian nor Nigerian for that matter. The worker, regardless of nationality, is not who I'm railing against.
Fair enough. I see your point. Apologies.
No worries mate. :)
india
He specifically mentioned timezone
Counterpoint: Nigeria is in the same time zone as Germany.
And even that isn't important. Its part of the veneer. The outsourcing spree of the late 00's/early 10's created an intense distrust of outsourcing that persists today in the IT industry. That's why he avoids saying India, he wants to have his cake (cheap labor) and eat it too (not resalt old wounds). But when the chips are down, all those benefits of same time zone collaboration and EU partnership will go out the window if they think it's the only way to increase revenue.
Edit: I was slightly mistaken on the dynamic here, but I still think the guy is a ghoul exploiting people for their labor.
I know. That's why I quoted India and not Nigeria.
With 240 euros you can pay a whole minimum salary (per month) in Brazil. With something like 2400 euros you have a full dev for 15000 BRL, which is like... Top 0,5% of salaries here.
No wonder they love hiring us.
That is not how it really works from what I know. If we are talking about an entity that manages talents, the overhead will be large. The costs for the company in Germany, Canada or the US will be the same. Except that scaling can be done much quicker. You need three devs + QA for a month? You got it. However the cost to employ them for that given timeframe will be about the same, with the talent management company being the overhead.
SA, IN, VN, BR, all have more relaxed laws around employment, so they can fire and hire staff with less restrictions.
Damn these pesky worker rights and strong unions meaning I can't exploit local engineers for less than their skills are worth
Boglex my balls
And here I was thinking I'd had all my chuckles already, over silly little punny names. Yours is excellent lmao, and just a single character needed too!
Happy to help. Humour helps forget the pain caused by the genophage ..... but the war is in the past, these days it is all about the podcast. Use the promo code MASS for 10% off cryopods.
For fuck's sake 😂
😂