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Comment by dawhizkid | Hacker News Reader

Life hack: Move to the Bay Area and get a Bay Area tech compensation package, gain enough trust within your company/team to convince your manager to work remotely, move to a cheaper cost of living place and keep same compensation package...profit. Seen it done many times...

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Why even move there? Many companies, including ours pay Bay Area salaries regardless of where you live.

I don’t think that’s true...AFAIK your typical FB/Goog comp package for the same level as Bay Area in London, for example, is significantly lower. And base salary might be semi comparable but total comp (I.e. stock) is for sure significantly higher in Bay Area than other areas.

The employers I know will renegotiate your terms if you ask them to relocate and work remotely.

Interestingly, some employers I know encourage remote working on the grounds that they then need to maintain smaller office spaces (actually those going to offices aren't that cramped). Seems like employers save on your not-coming in person and not minding keeping your high salary.

Quite a bit different from my experience, which admittedly is at companies like Google, Facebook, etc that bus people into HQ from 7 counties, into tightly packed office space.

What happens if you lose your Bay Area job or decide to switch out? Sounds like you'd need to move back to the Bay to repeat the process.

It’s called a hack for a reason

Here's the thing: what happens if you like living in the Bay Area and prefer working in person to working remotely? This strategy probably works great if you Want to live elsewhere, but otherwise it's a big trade off.

You're more than welcome to stay in California and pay California prices. A lot of other people feel that way too. No one is stopping you.

Then you pay the premium to live and work in the place that you (and millions of other people) want to be. The above strategy works best for people who don't actually WANT to live in the Bay Area.

what do you think?

I worked for an SF company but live in Cleveland. Now I work for a local office but still make about half the cost of my entire house every year.

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