I also have been saying this and was shocked to see that US developers demanded WFH instead of actively trying to stop it becoming a thing. I was trying to understand what makes them believe that their company will pay them 5 to 10 times more money to sit in front of a computer somewhere outside the company rather than someone who is in the other side of the world.
USA based ones have some advantages, like the timezone and the familiarity to the culture but both of these things are actually fixable and when fixed it saves a lot of money. I came to conclusion that US based developers must be thinking that they are better than everyone and that's why they are being paid these salaries.
The space I work in, which I don’t plan to leave, is hardware/software/embedded. I am hybrid, and sometimes I go in twice a month. When trying to integrate hardware into a system over a software interface (CAN, various serial, i2c, eth, etc) I am on-site daily.
Then integrating a whole subsystem into the actual product, same deal. I spend as much time holding a wrench or a meter as I do writing code.
This is very hard to outsource.
I skipped the whole webdev movement. Closest I got was using Wt (C++) to make an engineering interface for a system once, so non-engineers could actuate relays and devices.
I do think I’m better than most people at this. I don’t think it can be outsourced, and I am not concerned.
People can argue about the latest js framework or how amazing rust is for the next 15 years, at which point I plan on retiring.
This type of work is largely recession-proof and offshoring-proof.
USA based ones have some advantages, like the timezone and the familiarity to the culture but both of these things are actually fixable and when fixed it saves a lot of money. I came to conclusion that US based developers must be thinking that they are better than everyone and that's why they are being paid these salaries.