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Comment by xivzgrev | Hacker News Reader

exactly this. i'm pretty surprised at the number of people buying homes in far out locations, like this "new normal" is going to be the "new normal" ongoing. I don't buy it (yet). There are a few companies that have bought in, and if you work there then at least you're set for a bit. But people only stay at a tech job for a few years typically - what happens when you want to switch companies?

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It's certainly possible that people have taken a liking to remote work and decided it's the right move for themselves. Whether in 5 years remote work is much more prevalent than it was in Feb 2020 or about the same doesn't necessarily affect your own individual decision making.

If you’re used to receiving BigCo pay and bought a mansion in a remote vacation hotspot, you could be in for a rude awakening if you find other remote jobs pay half as much and your employer knows that and stops giving you refreshes.

This.

The FAANG crowd is used to pulling down $100k-$150k. Developer jobs that are advertised as remote from day one tend to be closer to $50k-$70k.

(These numbers are based on a combination of rumors and job board postings, so no, I don't have a source to cite.)

Erm, in my experience (20 years, good but not a superstar) the numbers are 2x that. My last BigCo offer was $300k total comp and jobs with smaller companies (all remote) were around $120-150k. One startup offered me $190k to work remote (but I would have been the only remote worker).

That said, I agree that your average non-FAANG job pays about half of FAANG. Although this is true regardless of remote-ness.

You are getting those offers because of your 20 years of experience, not because remote work is inherently lucrative. Most people with 10 or fewer years of experience are used to seeing remote-only offers of less than $100k.

I have less than 20 years experience (less than 10 even) and I have gotten/seen a bunch of offers/jobs/etc with remote-only or remote-first over 100k

Do you believe your experience is common, or that you are an outlier?

It's less me, and more the experience of myself, my close friends and professional colleagues. But as with everything, I would assume it's a mix of both.

Can you speak more about these experiences? Are these colleagues from average or elite schools? FAANG type backgrounds or typical corp resumes?

No, we're all pretty average people. Mediocre colleges with mediocre degrees and mediocre working histories.

I work for a big company you've heard of as a developer. I'm fully remote since pre-pandemic and plan to stay fully remote indefinitely.

If you're a good developer with experience, it doesn't really matter where you are. I actually get paid more total comp than I would in SF, my cost of living is lower, and my tax situation is much better.

This is interesting, they pay you extra to not live in SF?

Sorry I missed your reply, but technically, yeah. Being remote when I switched jobs gave me an absolutely great negotiating posture. I didn't even have to leave the house, and it's not as if I was stepping away from my desk to make secret phone calls. Plus I could work anywhere in the world, so it became about company selection and negotiation.

Once I found the company and nailed the interviews, I got an offer ~30% lower than the SF salary because of CoL adjustment. My position was that if my salary could be offset by much riskier equity (aka more than the 30% cut, but essentially free for the company), I would accept the position. So I ended up getting a larger total comp than would have been available to me in SF. Also I don't even need 50% of my salary to live outside of CA anyway, so it's a major lifestyle upgrade.

This only works because I get to choose any company in the world. That means the equity I get is something I would have invested in anyway given the opportunity.

For the first time in my career I feel that I negotiated well and have confidence in my employer, and it never would have happened by just being another dev in the bay area.

This comment is all kinds of wrong. FAANG is "used to" pulling down anywhere from 150-400k.

On the flipside, many many remote jobs pay significantly more than you're describing, more in line with every other non-FAANG developer jobs. If you're just looking at those poorly managed "Remote Job Board" sites, of course you'll think that, because most of those jobs are just subcontracts and gig-type roles.

Yes, there'll be a COL difference, but it's not like you're describing. Gitlab, as an example, pays a Data Engineer in nowhere Indiana 90-120k for remote work.

I too want to wait and see, but I could see things shifting more permanently. When employees get benefits, they tend to be "sticky": they're not easily given up. Working remotely in a nicer place is a pretty good benefit for a lot of people.

You only interview at companies that support remote (or with hiring managers who will support you being remote in an org that isn’t fully committed to remote) and you keep a large emergency fund to give you substantial runway between jobs (~1 year expenses). Very easy to do on a tech salary and you moved to a low cost of living area with cheap housing (<$1k/month mortgage, reasonable property taxes).

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