There's a common assumption that offshore development inherently raises bus factor risk. The data tells a more precise story, and it's worth getting right, both as someone who might work offshore and someone who might hire offshore talent.
A single local developer and a single offshore developer create the exact same bus factor: 1. The underlying risk, one person holding all critical knowledge, doesn't care about geography.
What does change with offshore arrangements is the cost of recovery if that person becomes unavailable. Time zone gaps, weaker communication rituals, and slower context transfer can turn what would be a normal handover into a much slower reverse-engineering exercise. This is a structural risk multiplier, not an inherent property of offshore work.
The comparison, concretely:
Single Local Developer
