I find people who have never actually worked remotely before are all jazzed going full time remote. People who have done it before, like myself, will tell them it's not for everyone and has some downsides. Once people realize they can't just go snowboarding in the middle of the day and need to actively find human interaction to avoid depression and isolation while getting paid less they will change their tune.
The ideal setup is 1-2 days per week WFH and flexible WFH while traveling for the holidays so you don't have burn through vacation days IMO.
I agree, but I'll note that I did exactly what you're talking about (went on a snowboarding trip while getting paid to "WFH"). I was in Europe, so I was on the mountains until midafternoon, and then worked the rest of the afternoon / evening. Worked great - I got a lot of work done, spent a ton of time on the mountains, and my employer never complained about my output (I spent a good 6-8 hours working each day, and easily got my normal workload done).
Yeah... what you describe isn’t lying about working from home. It’s changing where ‘home’ is. I was considering doing that this summer for some hiking trips, too.
They increased about .5% inflation adjust per year from 2010-2020. That again does not mean that spending is out of control especially when you consider that 2010 was still in the depths of the great recession.
People are going to change their tune once the paycuts start coming. There is no reason to pay SF money to someone living in the Midwest. $80k a year is comfortable most places. I hope remote first people like the suburbs and country because there is no reason to live in the city with no office.
The real truth though is most people are far less productive remote because it requires proactive communication and self discipline that just don’t appear because now you are working remotely.
This is to virtue signal and get out of expensive real estate in Civic Center SF in Twitter’s case. That area is a zombie apocalypse.
If you are fully remote then anyone in the world can do your job. Supply goes up prices go down. I bet execs will get paid the same though.
Right now, there is _zero_ reason for companies not to announce permanent work from home. It gets them positive attention and makes them part of the buzz. They are already paying the comp they are paying.
Putting aside the fact that these policies can change on a dime (it's really "permantnet work from home _for now_"), what's really crazy is that people are seriously planning to take companies at their word and are considering leaving the Bay Area and are assuming they are taking their Bay Area comp with them.
Ok, cases:
1. company does NOT to geo-based adjustment to any current employee, but DOES use adjusted salaries for new ones (in other words, path-dependent compensation). Two people, same job, different compensation. This is not that unusual in other industries but can be a source of serious resentment. Suppose a bay area employee moves to India..
2. company uses relocated employees to establish new comp packages for those geos - this will only go so far. many cases will be employees moving to less expensive areas.
3. company sets a "standard" compensation package world-wide that everyone gets - this is impossible to really execute on, or it will be very low relative to peer companies.
and so on. Employees who end up in a case 1 situation will find that after AVERAGE_TENURE they go looking for a new job and end up geo-adjusted. From a company perspective, this is a no-lose golden handcuffs situation and anyway the problem resolves itself quickly.
I tend to believe companies will walk this back as soon as covid-19 dies down, if not right away then as part of executive transitions where someone decides to "transform the business." But in the end it makes no difference - the long term trajectory, if it sticks around, is probably case (1) or some blend of (1) and (2). For developed nation engineers, case (3) is dire, the end of the career.
My office (small site within a big company) sent out a survey
about working from home.
The majority responded that they didn't want to WFH. There was a question that had several options for which composition of WFH vs WFO people wanted in the new normal. Only 25% of people picked an answer where they would WFH more often than they'd WFO.
> it requires proactive communication and self discipline that just don’t appear because now you are working remotely.
My experience has been that people that struggle with these things are just as unproductive in an office, they just hide it better.
By far the most productive teams I've been on as far as getting work done are remote teams. When you're remote all that matters at the end of the week is how much stuff you can concretely show you have accomplished.
In an office you can get credit for doing nothing very easily.
So yea remote work is going to be rough for people that are currently using office culture to hide, and in some offices that is a very large number of people.
I've worked from home for about 15 years. I have some friends that work from home. My brother does too.
The answer to this really depends upon the person. I've worked from home since I graduated from college, and initially I would eat, sleep, work, and play games all in the same room, because I had roommates. And I was fine with it.
Some people can't do that. Some people need a dedicated workspace. Some people need to get dressed. My brother works from home, and he still wears a tie everyday. Because that's what he needs to do to get into "work mode".
I'm not saying any of this will work for you. But just wanted to let you know that while this is a thing for some people, you still might be able to get that feeling when you work from home.
Salaries are what the market will bear (on both sides). If more companies are remote then first class remote engineers will be able to get more offers when they're on the market and thus will be able to command higher comp.
Separately, if you're undifferentiated then of course anyone will be able to do your job if you're colocated with headquarters or not. The trick to selling your time for more money is to differentiate yourself in a way that creates more value for the company hiring you. Your career is a business that rewards a continuous growth and sales process.
"If you are fully remote then anyone in the world can do your job. Supply goes up prices go down."
I work for an all-remote company and wages are based on the NY labour market. Anyone on the planet can apply sure, but I've not seen salaries reduce (if anything they're highly competitive outside of SF!). If you can get $150k and live wherever you want I wouldn't complain!
> I hope remote first people like the suburbs and country because there is no reason to live in the city with no office.
I feel like these kinds of blunt "no reason" statements are meaningless, just like saying "work from home sucks" or "work from home is always the best."
I live in a city and work from home, and I will continue to live in my city even if the entire industry goes to primarily work from home. There are a lot of reasons to live here, several centered on "driving sucks, according to techsupporter." I would hate to live in a suburb or out in the country, places where I've lived before and have moved away from.
This is my fear as well. Not only will I no longer have face-t-face interaction, and the break-up in my day that and office allows, but pay will probably decrease across the board.
Coming from a non-coastal state, I honestly do not understand the superiority complex a lot of coastal developers have. There are good developers everywhere, and the ones living in the southwest or the midwest are willing to do the same work for less money. But, you can be willing to bet the execs will receive a pay bump for their "cost-saving measures".
If anything it'd raise the wages for people in the low cost of living areas and eventually equalize out. You can get one person making $500k in SF (plus office costs) or hire 2 or 3 people making $165-250k/each in Suburban America with no office costs. Doubtful that people will go entirely offshore due to time-zone, quality and other cultural differences, we tried that in the early 2000s when everything went to India only to see it come right back. There's a ton of really good engineers who for one reason or another don't want to move to SF and work in Corporate Enterprise America instead. Those people are probably already at $130-150k+ in Corporate America but will job hop to Remote BigTech Company for $165k and more interesting work. Corporate America will have to compete and will raise wages. Meanwhile devs previously making $500k in SF will have to take a $275k gig as more work goes elsewhere, but rent costs should come down as well.
I have been telling my coworkers and friends for years that these salaries are not sustainable for 30 years and everyone called me a pessimist.
It's not hard to see that the "good times" and "gold rush" can't last forever. The fact people lied to themselves thinking it's permanent should teach them something about themselves.
Probably, but this is exactly what main street America has been dealing with for the past 40 years: buy a house close to your great job, but now your industry has gone elsewhere for cheaper labor and you're now underwater on your mortgage and even basic city services are going downhill.
Salaries will almost certainly be cut. If you can go 100% remote someone in the Midwest can do your job on $80k/year. All the places you listed are still expensive and if you are remote you don’t need to live there.
It might just be the current situation but I have seen maybe 4 homeless in 3 weeks in my day to day and I take a lot of walks. Could just be looking in the wrong spots but there were literally 20 tents on my block near Bart in the Mission so its an upgrade.
I think I heard Pioneer Square is bad, just walked there the other day and it's not anything like SFs bad areas. There could just be better options for homeless during the shutdown here than SF though. I will reserve full judgement until things are back open.
People are going to be surprised by the state of the FiDi in SF when things open back up. Many tents have gone up there with everyone gone and WFH. Going to be interesting when people go back to the office there.
Definitely true, also the anything near 16th Street Mission Bart is out of control. There are definitely nice parts of SF, usually on a hill, but the bad parts are BAD.
I can’t even imagine the levels of civil disobedience in America if a track and trace program is mandated. WA state, left leaning, already proposed track and trace to go to restaurants and already walked it back after pressure. People are starting to run out of money and food and they will turn to violence. We need to follow the same light social distancing approach as Sweden and Florida imo.
Sending your kids to school all the way up including university costs about ~€10K per kid in Europe. How much would it cost in the US? ~$150K? I think that would make up another large chunk of price difference.
And: it’s available for every parent. Not just those in nice tech jobs.
For California residents, the top state schools are ~$57k in tuition for all 4 years (total). Yes, American private universities would cost more, but that's a choice to pay more if you think it's worth it.
As the pandemic demonstrated, quality of education is hardly relevant. It is all about the credentialism. 16 yo kids in Palo Alto didn’t threw themselves in front of the caltrain because they so desired a quality education. It is because there is so much competition in labor market that even their multi-millionaire parents could do so much. Why do you think we had an Operation Varsity Blues? If hyper-affluent is under this much pressure to cheat, what chance does the $175k/year software laborer’s kid have?
Depends where you live. There's no reason the 175k employee can't live somewhere "bad" or suffer a long commute. Most major western european cities and their suburbs are by no means cheap to find housing in.
>car & car insurance
Most white collar Europeans with families own cars. Owning and operating a vehicle is astronomically cheaper in the US, even in California which has insanely high costs compared to the median or mean state.
>kindergarten
Part of the free (at the point of use, obviously it's paid for by taxes) public school system in the US.
>And you medical coverage might still cover less than the European one.
I don't want to have a healthcare debate but the cost was addressed higher up the thread and the difference in coverage between what American BigCo employees get and what Europeans get (and both those classes of insurance are diverse enough to make comparison impractical without sweeping generalizations) is not going to be meaningful except in the edge cases.
> Depends where you live. There's no reason the 175k employee can't live somewhere "bad" or suffer a long commute. Most major western european cities and their suburbs are by no means cheap to find housing in.
I don't think there are many "bad" places that are cheap around Silicon Valley.
Most western European cities have neighbourhoods that are drastically cheaper than the well-off ones.
> Most white collar Europeans with families own cars. Owning and operating a vehicle is astronomically cheaper in the US, even in California which has insanely high costs compared to the median or mean state.
New cars in America are twice as expensive as the average in the EU.
Average car insurance in America is five times as expensive as the average in the EU.
> Part of the free (at the point of use, obviously it's paid for by taxes) public school system in the US.
Sorry, I meant nursery.* Kindergarten is free in the EU as well.
> I don't want to have a healthcare debate but the cost was addressed higher up the thread and the difference in coverage between what American BigCo employees get and what Europeans get (and both those classes of insurance are diverse enough to make comparison impractical without sweeping generalizations) is not going to be meaningful except in the edge cases.
Well that's convenient. Based on the American medical debt lets go with a lesser coverage for the American workforce.
Also it's not taking into account the cost of opportunity of having medical insurance event when you won't be employed anymore in case of an accident or other reason.
>I don't think there are many "bad" places that are cheap around Silicon Valley.
They're not cheap relative to other parts of the country buy they're cheap relative to where most white collar employees are living. The janitor and the plumber have to live somewhere and you can pay what they pay if you don't mind living among them.
>Most western European cities have neighbourhoods that are drastically cheaper than the well-off ones.
And in American cities those neighborhoods are particular suburbs (often cities themselves). Cheap housing that is literally in the city is much less numerous.
>New cars in America are twice as expensive as the average in the EU.
You can't compare car prices without comparing the cars and the associated costs. Americans buy much larger more expensive vehicles because they can because the taxes are lower, the fees are lower and the insurance is cheaper. This topic has been beaten to death. Americans buy $30k crossovers because those $30k crossovers cost $30k out the door. Contrast that to the typical taxes on new cars in Europe and you'll see why Europeans gravitate toward lower purchase prices.
>Average car insurance in America is five times as expensive as the average in the EU.
Citation please. This flies in the face of all my anecdotal experience.
>Sorry, I meant nursery.* Kindergarten is free in the EU as well.
We call that daycare. In the US you have an entire range of options from a high priced daycare with a low child:staff ratio, located in a high end part of town, quadruple extra special background checks on all the employees, etc, etc all the way down to single person cash only operations that people run out of their homes. It's as expensive or cheap as you're willing to make it. Remember, the poor families have to send their kids somewhere too so it's not like options don't exist at every price point. It's rare in tech because the employee demographics result in low demand but many employers offer free/cheap on-site daycare or a voucher to a particular daycare as a job perk. That said, work from home perks that are common in tech can alleviate some of the demand for daycare.
>Well that's convenient. Based on the American medical debt lets go with a lesser coverage for the American workforce. Also it's not taking into account the cost of opportunity of having medical insurance event when you won't be employed anymore in case of an accident or other reason.
I'm done debating with you. I'm not going to get tricked into trying to defend the American system as overall better which is where you seem to be nudging the goalposts toward. All I am saying is that even with it's failings someone making 175k (a pay grade certainly not representative of the workforce in general) is likely better off with it than taking a 100k pay cut for the European system.
It is possible to spend the same amount in medical, car and daycare expenses if you keep a job while being ill, ride a beat-up car and leave your kid to a shady cash-only operating in someone's home.
So explain to me how earning $100K more is so interesting again?
You can get a new Toyota/Honda car for 2 months pay after taxes in the US scenario. And it’s trivial to go to Nevada from the Bay Area to make the purchase and pocket the cost difference if you have a spare weekend.
You spend more on medical out of pocket, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the pittance folks make in Europe. Set aside $200k over 16 years of school/daycare and you’ve still cleared in excess of a million dollars more than your European counterparts.
There is a reason the top SWEs in the world flock to the tech companies in the US. The income is drastically better and if you don’t succumb to lifestyle inflation, you can live like a typical European middle class citizen (one car, tiny apartment, little eating out) and retire after a 15 year career.
> There is a reason the top SWEs in the world flock to the tech companies in the US.
I can tell you from experience that no developer I have ever met in my career want to move to the US. Sorry to burst your bubble. And it's not even a question of money for most of them.
> The income is drastically better and if you don’t succumb to lifestyle inflation, you can live like a typical European middle class citizen (one car, tiny apartment, little eating out)
That's not a typical European middle class citizen. Typical European middle class citizen already bought a house within that timeframe.
> retire after a 15 year career
Not sure where you're retiring but it's not going to be Europe because you would be way, way off money wise since you don't own anything.
To give one idea, nursing home room cost is 100k/year. Considering the possibility of chronic conditions, specialized treatments and overall increase in healthcare usage, in the span between 70-90 it is very easy go over >2M.
My parents put up grandma with Dementia in PA for about $50k a year in nice place. Are you drawing figures from movie star nursing homes in LA or something? Do you think the average American just puts a bullet in their head after 70? The household income in this country is about $60k a year. Your math is ludicrous.
The ideal setup is 1-2 days per week WFH and flexible WFH while traveling for the holidays so you don't have burn through vacation days IMO.