Hacker News Reader

Comment by chrissnell | Hacker News Reader

Have you looked into remote work? If you are sufficiently senior and produce top-notch work, there are plenty of places that will let you work remotely at SFBA pay. For the cost of living in the Bay Area, you could have a condo in Telluride, or a nice house in a state like Montana or Idaho. Where I live (small-ish town Kansas), you would have a really tough time finding a house with a house payment as high as the typical rent on a San Francisco 2BR. You could have a beautiful, huge spread with a kitchen full of commercial-grade gear and a spa for a bathroom for that money out here.

View on HN

The problem with remote work is that you are incredibly dependent on your current employer. If your job disappears for some reason you will have a pretty hard time finding comparable work again. If you live in the Bay area or probably about major tech hub chances are you might find another job by just walking down the street and drinking coffee in the right place.

> you will have a pretty hard time finding comparable work again

Why is that? The web is full of remote job offers.

And full of people applying for them.

Like all other jobs?

There are a lot fewer people applying for jobs local to me than there applying to jobs that will let me work remote. By a factor of over 100.

I have a friend whose employer let her be remote, so she and her husband moved to Austin and bought a gorgeous house, dependent on her bay area salary. 8 months go by, employer changed their mind, didn't want remote workers any more. Gave her the option to come back, she was pregnant and they liked their big house, so they said no, thinking she would have no problem finding remote work.

6 months later she's still unemployed, considering giving up her career and just being a stay at home mom. They'll sell their austin house and downsize.

Point is: remote workers are always the first to get let go, and the income is not dependable.

Your point is painted in awfully broad strokes given you have exactly one example of it.

I think it's fair to say that it's riskier to depend on a remote job than it is to depend on an on-site job.

That really sucks for your friend, by the way.

The parent said at SF Bay Area pay. The easiest way to get that is start in Bay Area, do a great job and then move. Once you've moved and want a new remote job with that salary it's much harder.

Try getting one :) Remote job listing also means that there is an entire world of competition out there, much of which makes less than half of SFBA dev wages.

Just quit my job and I'm on it. In Eastern Europe I don't need the full SF package, half sounds fantastic.

I get that for US workers it might be looking for a different set of tradeoffs.

What? I've worked remote for ten years and at four companies and never had any difficulty.

The parent said at SF Bay Area pay. Do you have that with your remote job(s).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com