readyforbrunch

You didn't consider inflation. 2013's $5 is $7 in today's money. Today's $4 equals roughly 2013's $2.82.

So a near 44% price reduction for a 50% reduction in only one of the components. Looks like progression to me.

That's where something like openspec and beads come in. You work high level, create a spec and break it down into beads (small tasks). Your main agent then spawns workers that perform a task with limited scope.

How do you orchestrate this workflow? Do you define different skills that all use different models, or something else?

Having led the process from the other side, the more often your name comes up in a positive light, the better your chances. Odds are that OPs work simply wasn't mentioned much by his peers. The person you are replying to was absolutely on the money.

Promotions aren't a popularity contest, but they definitely are a popularity contest.

For us it was okta. Not only in their subscription cost, but also because using okta meant we had to upgrade most of our SaaS subscriptions to their enterprise package.

Got rid of it, hired 2 people with a small portion of the budget that was freed up and never looked back.

Numbers I work with are ~45k for a senior software engineer in Hungary, Spain, Italy, Greece vs ~85k in France, Germany, the Netherlands. Fully loaded cost (tax, insurance) adds about 20-30% on top in West. South and East are considerably less.

You can find even cheaper staff but you're still competing for talent. I can pay someone in South or East a premium against their market and still save big compared to an average salary in West.

This is ignoring any other benefits you have as employer in South and East. Try to fire or lay someone off in France - it'll cost you.

It's not offshoring in the same way as it was 20 years ago. They are remote employees, they go through the same hiring process as everyone else but at 50% the price. And remote work is much, much more accessible.

Remote workers located in HCOL areas of US and Europe have shot themselves in the foot. I see it especially in the market for native mobile development in Western Europe. Salaries decreasing, freelance rates dropping. There is plenty of work, but positions are filled with workers living in the South or East.

As hiring manager, if I'm going to hire someone who works remote, I will pick the person with the same skillset and experience at half the cost.