This article is more than 1 year old

Your job was probably outsourced for exactly the reason you suspected

It costs relatively next to nothing to hire devs on the other side of the planet

Wondering where software developers are – or aren't – earning top dollar? Just look at a list of the leading outsourcers and their most popular outsourcing destinations. 

That's the data that can be found in a global software engineering salary report this month from CodeSubmit, which develops coding challenges for technical interviews. According to the report, the US leads in developer salaries with an average of $110,140, followed by Switzerland and Israel – the UK comes in at $55,275 (£46,000), just below Australia – while the poorest-paying countries are led by Nigeria, which pays an average of just $7,255 annually to software devs – less than seven percent of the average US salary. 

India, one of the most popular destinations for outsourcing technically skilled jobs, pays only $470 more on average than Nigeria. The Philippines, also popular for outsourcing, pays on average only $7,936, while popular eastern European outsourcing destinations Poland and Ukraine pay between $22,000 and $23,000 per year. China, another top outsourcing destination, pays developers an average of $23,790.

Where outsourcing originates ...

In terms of who is outsourcing, the numbers in CodeSubmit's study coincide here, too: America, far and away the highest-paying country for software developers, is also the world's biggest outsourcer, being reportedly responsible for approximately 84 percent of outsourcing deals in the world. 

The refrain remains the same from US tech companies: they can't find enough people to fill jobs, and rising salary demands, particularly in the wake of the great resignation, have made filling positions more expensive. Well, until they started pausing or slowing down hiring, with Apple the latest to tap the brakes.

In an interview with Business Insider, Chris Bakke, CEO at tech recruiting platform Laskie, said remote work and high salaries make hiring stateside software engineers less essential. "US tech companies are saying, 'We can hire an engineer in the United States for $300,000 or we can hire somebody great internationally with very similar experience for $75,000,'" Bakke said.

... and where it ends up

That same article quotes statistics from California-based payroll startup Deel, which since launching in 2019 has hired 1,100 people in 75 countries. Only 18 percent of the San Francisco company's staff work in the States; just one percent of the company's US employees work in engineering, data, and product. 

Along with China, Poland, Ukraine, the Philippines, India, and Nigeria, Russia, South Africa and Brazil are also leading outsourcing destinations, CodeSubmit's study indicated. While that list doesn't coincide directly with other lists of the most common destinations to outsource software development, there is considerable overlap. 

We've reached out to CodeSubmit for additional details. ®

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