Blatant plug: What you want is near-shoring. Canadian development shops and remote Canadian developers are like "Mexicans with sweaters." Lower cost-of-living, we have our family's health care taken care of while we work on your start-up, and our subsidized universities churn out a steady stream of new grads.
Add in the fact that we speak English (even if our spelling has idiosyncrasies like "cheque," "colour," and "centre"), the ease of flying back and forth, and the fact that we work in the same bloody time zone...
And one more thing: Major Canadian cities like Toronto and Vancouver are an incredible melting pot of cultures, so you can find people who speak English and French, Hindi, Mandarin, Cantonese, Greek, Spanish, or whatever else you may need as you build out your Global empire.
If you must go remote or outsource, I suggest looking North of the 49th before you look in South-East Asia.
Another plug: Americans living overseas. There's a ton of us, and we speak English, have US bank accounts, and understand American culture. We're also likely to be back in the US every so often...
Another plug: Oregon programmers. We have strong open source tech culture and programming talents are everywhere, comparable to SF area. But our living expenses are drastically cheaper.
Wanted: American Ex-Pat and Canadian software developers with a passion for changing the world. Are you self-motivated and fascinated by the idea of applying nano-statistical modelling to the problem of online dating game mechanics? Are you interested in remote work? If so, send us your github profile and we'll be in touch.
Because I honestly can't tell how serious statements like that are anymore, even with significant amounts of context, what the hell does "nano-statistical" mean?
(because improving dating websites by better statistics seems like a good first step on one of my world takeover plans)
The exact wording was meant as a joke! The meta-message is, just start asking. Tell the world what you're doing and make it clear that you're open to talking to remote workers with North American roots. The rest will follow.
Good! The significant amount of context is that, coming om your previous writing, I seriously hope you're not dabbling in something like nano-statistical-adversarial-mating-synergisms.
Seriously, though, in my case I'm currently a non-dev though I would like to be. I'm a college student (online...) and a freelance writer that does some web dev too. I think remote work has potential, but today most companies only want remote freelancers, not full employees...
"Lower cost-of-living, we have our family's health care taken care of while we work on your start-up, and our subsidized universities churn out a steady stream of new grads."
Cost of living really depends. There's lots of inexpensive places with tons of techies in the States - cost of living in Montreal is about the same as Austin, and more expensive than Portland. Vancouver and Calgary are both really expensive - maybe just slightly less than SF.
Provincial health insurance doesn't cover dental or eyeglasses.
All the really good guys in my graduating CS class (University of Calgary) went to work or grad school in Silicon Valley or NYC. I was the only one that came back, and the only reason I'm sticking around is because I like Montreal and want to go get an MBA here while it's still subsidized - I'm going to start this September, and will be in the last class before the Quebec provincial tuition subsidies are lifted in 2012. Canadian education will get a lot more expensive in the next few years.
By this logic, you might as well hire people in less expensive parts of the US and avoid the (small, but existant) cross-border business issues. Also, Vancouver and Toronto aren't particularly low cost-of-living cities. Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Austin, and Raleigh are all cheaper.
Let's not fall into the trap of arguing on the basis of a false dichotomy. If you can find talent in Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Austin, and Raleigh, you ought to hire them. If you can find talent in Toronto and Vancouver, you ought to hire us too.
There is no false dichotomy. The connotation of "off-shoring" is that the purpose is to reduce costs because median wages are an order of magnitude lower in third world countries. Costs aren't reduced if you've still got to pay people middle-class first-world wages.
I agree with you though. Talented developers are a scarce resource and can command high wages wherever they are located. Developers aren't like factory workers, they need a high level of education, many years to become proficient, often excel ONLY if they are strong critical thinkers, and need little more than a computer and an Internet connection to be productive. Further, software development is simultaneously and continuously INCREASING in both demand and complexity. It seems as if there will never be a point at which developer wages will be going down relative to the World economy as a whole.
If I live in Mumbai and I'm an awesome developer, I'm going to bill a high rate. People will pay it because the alternative is to hire a fleet of $10/hr developers that will create a cluster fuck. Anyone who's better than them can command multiples of that.
Add Northern Minnesota. The Duluth Chamber of Commerce (I think) has been pushing the "Offshore to the North Shore" program for a few years. Low cost of living + nearby universities graduating MIS people == opportunities.
Add in the fact that we speak English (even if our spelling has idiosyncrasies like "cheque," "colour," and "centre"), the ease of flying back and forth, and the fact that we work in the same bloody time zone...
And one more thing: Major Canadian cities like Toronto and Vancouver are an incredible melting pot of cultures, so you can find people who speak English and French, Hindi, Mandarin, Cantonese, Greek, Spanish, or whatever else you may need as you build out your Global empire.
If you must go remote or outsource, I suggest looking North of the 49th before you look in South-East Asia.