Developers were basically the first workforce that was able to access the global market of job opportunities long before the pandemic forced the planet to rethink how to get ahead in the midst of this crisis. Society went from being apathetic about online education to experiencing exponential growth in enrollment in virtual courses, suggesting that the paradigm shift was comprehensive, transforming many other aspects of our way of life: shopping, entertainment, travel, food and of course work.
But apparently being pioneers has brought its consequences, and today it is seen that the developer exhaustion syndrome is taking its toll, at the level of their high salaries. Developers today live the greatest privileges of remote work, but at the same time they face great stress that can be mitigated, with the support of the global labor market.
Workers today have understood that remote work allows them to have time with their families and they know that companies are finding it increasingly difficult to retain talent if this flexibility is not present in the benefits package.
In 2022 The growth of interest in having a job that is at least hybrid or ideally 100% remote will continue to increase, as indicated by various surveys, and platforms such as Google Trends, where a search term such as “Work Remotely”, went from 49 percent to first week of January 2022, to 70 in the fourth week of July, not only the highest value reached in the entire current year, but it is the second highest, after mid-March 2020, the pandemic forced the world to confine itself, it reached 100, the highest number of interest on Google Trends.
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Remote work is the future
One of the portals specialized in remote work that managed to consolidate itself after the pandemic is We Work Remotely (WWR), today registers more than 27.000 exclusively remote job vacancies, and the vast majority for developers, today reaffirms its mantra: "remote work is the future".
Companies today have access to a global labor market of developers and other digital professionals and this can be a great advantage to the extent that it allows them to be very competitive, acquiring high-level talent, anywhere in the world, but even they may end up saving a good deal of money not only on base salary, but avoiding taking on some of the perks that experienced developers within the United States demand.
A freelance contract to an experienced developer located in a Central or South American country can start at USD $20 an hour, and be very competitive by country standards, much more so today, when the currencies of these countries and of other places in the world are suffering from the strong devaluation against the dollar, a consequence largely of the increase in interest rates by the FED and the war in Ukraine, which, as is clear, continues to affect the entire globe.
It is undeniable that the economy is in a complex condition, and that is why, for companies in the United States, having trained talent in these conditions will be something that they will have to consider and weigh internally. It can even be a way to contribute to reducing developer burnout, by being able to free up tasks of different complexities to their base teams, or those who work remotely from the United States.
How a global developer job market can help
It is a fact that one way to free up loads on one worker is simply by hiring another with whom they can divide these tasks. For the company, this option, sometimes, can hardly be considered. Remote work and the global developer job market may be one way to put that card on the table.
The dilemma may be whether this will trigger a deterioration in working conditions for developers living in the United States. The answer could be: you haven't done it so far, why would you do it now?
In reality, the hiring of professionals geographically located outside the United States as a Freelancer or by contract for services has been going on for a long time. You just have to see how many platforms that offer this type of services and applications have emerged after Freelancer saw the light 13 years ago. Then no. As long as companies can hire suitable professionals within the United States, they will do so and under the conditions they are currently demanding, that is, the best.
The reality is, for several years there has been talk of the developer shortage in the US, which does not seem to change, at least for the next 4 years.
What could happen instead is that using the global labor market for developers, conditions are improved with more competitive salaries in the internal labor market, of the countries in Central and South America. It may also be questionable that if freelancing has been around for several years and such working conditions in local markets in Latin America have not improved enough, why would it now?
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In this case the factual reality is yes. Developers working globally in these countries can see up to 4 times their income multiplied, when they are hired to work remotely, by companies in the United States, Canada or Europe. This is undoubtedly driving up local wages, and companies may need to find better conditions and benefits to retain their equally scarce talent.
The language barrier is still a great obstacle for many professionals and this is not the exception in the world of programming professionals, so this is basically the only excuse for a programmer who is not today looking for a way to connect professionally. and remotely, with a company abroad.
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Global Market can mitigate developer burnout.
Effectively mitigating and combating developer burnout can occur by offloading, expanding the developer base, without incurring the expense of hiring a new developer, by linking one from the global market.
So, we could have a comprehensive strategy for the company not only to attract the best talent while saving a lot of money, but also to be a very effective means with which they can release the heavy burdens that their plant developers feel today, and that constitute a of the main causes of exhaustion.
It seems a bit ironic that developers, who have been pioneers before the pandemic and the biggest beneficiaries of remote work, are now facing the negative consequences that come with it. The numbers can be shocking. A survey published by Haystack Analytics revealed that, in UK, 83% of developers may be suffering from burnout.
The factors causing burnout in developers are both internal and external and this is why companies must take action to prevent your developers from reaching these stress levels. Managers must go hand in hand with human resources departments to find the different actions that both the manager and the developer can implement to reduce stress and burnout, managing the factors that are under their control.
For the company, the answer to effectively mitigating and combating developer burnout may lie in offloading, expanding the developer base, without incurring the expense of hiring a new developer, by tying in a developer from the global marketplace. This, without the risk of initiating a detriment of conditions for developers in the United States, but on the contrary with the possibility of promoting an effect that raises salary conditions in the local market in Latin America.
